InterfaceFLOR has signed a pan-European agreement with waste management specialist, SITA to recover end-of-life carpet tiles from customers across Europe and maximize their use. The tiles will be returned to InterfaceFLOR to be re-used by the company’s social partners or fully recycled in to new carpet tiles using the company’s ReEntry 2.0 technology.  

Lindsey Parnell, President & CEO of InterfaceFLOR in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India said, “We are really excited to be scaling up our ReEntry programme with SITA’s logistics and recycling expertise. Like us, they see what many classify as waste as a future raw material and a business opportunity. And at a time when commodities are in short supply and costs are spiralling, it is even more important than ever to make maximum use of what we have.”

He continued, “Our ultimate aim is to close the materials loop, so that our used products become the raw materials for our new products, making us an entirely self-sufficient and sustainable business.”

InterfaceFLOR’s partnership with SITA will initially operate in The Netherlands, and will be expanded over the next eighteen months to cover more of the EMEAI region.

The new carpet tile recovery partnership is in line with InterfaceFLOR’s Mission Zero goal to eliminate any negative impact it has on the environment by 2020. Since the mid-'90s, the company has made significant progress towards achieving this goal, including an 82% reduction in waste sent to landfill and more than $438 million saved in avoided waste costs. Currently over 40% of total raw materials for InterfaceFLOR’s products are recycled or bio-based.

InterfaceFLOR’s ReEntry program provides customers with three options for their used carpet tiles: reuse; recycling through the ReEntry 2.0 process or energy recovery. The process has the capability to recycle a significant capacity of 600,000 square meters per year, which the company plans to further increase in the future.

For used broadloom carpet and carpet tiles not suitable for recycling through ReEntry 2.0, InterfaceFLOR is working with SITA to offer an energy recovery service, using the most responsible and efficient methods available. Carpet has a relatively high calorific value, and energy can be generated by incinerating the carpet in a controlled waste-to-energy facility, or by using it as fuel and raw material in the cement industry.