If one does a Google search for recycled tile, or tile with recycled content, one product will invariably come up: glass tile. This product is a kind of terrazzo where small chunks of broken glass are suspended in an epoxy or concrete mixture. If you are looking for one particular color range then the material becomes expensive due to the sorting and culling process needed for the glass. Terrazzo has been around since ancient Roman times, so this product is not really anything new. You can suspend nearly anything in epoxy, so this product is not all that innovative. However, it is a good way to recycle old glass.
Now for something truly innovative!
Porcelain tile is fired at such a high temperature, and compressed at such a high pressure that it takes diamonds to break it apart. Sure the tile may shatter if you throw it on a concrete floor, but you can only break it down so far. Re-using broken porcelain tile has been a struggle. You could suspend it in an epoxy similar to the glass tile, but it couldn’t be re-used in porcelain tile since it has already been fired and compressed, and it would take a very costly process to break it down into usable particles.
Then I got this exciting announcement:
“With its new Tile-Take-Back program, Crossville, the tile industry’s leader in sustainable initiatives, has solved the major environmental problem facing the tile industry today: recycling fired tile! Crossville has developed a proprietary system of processing ceramic and porcelain tile back into powder used in manufacturing new tile. The resulting new products will have a verifiable recycled content, and more than four million pounds of fired waste that Crossville has previously sent to local landfills will be recycled.”
I’ve personally visited one of the Crossville manufacturing plants and have seen their inventiveness up close. They have been keenly aware that their waste was literally “piling up” around them for some time now. I am thrilled they have finally figured out a way to recycle their products. Following in the footsteps of the carpet industry, Crossville is now taking back used tile (the only manufacturer in the country to do this).
For more information contact: TileTakeBack@VirginiaTile.com
Tags: Crossville, porcelain tile, recycled tile
