Carpet Plus' Re-Cork C’Ville program has collected over 1.1 million cork stoppers since 2009.

Five years after its inception, Carpet Plus’ Re-Cork C’Ville program has collected over 1.1 million cork stoppers from over 60 participating locations in the Charlottesville, Va., area. Carpets Plus, an independent specialty retailer in Charlottesville, Va., recently partnered with Yemm & Hart, a Missouri-based company that recycles used wine cork stoppers into tile, to make use of the recyled cork from the program.

"In what began as a quest to collect wine corks for a small project focusing on cork flooring, we discovered that of the almost 15 billion wine corks that are sold into the world market each year, the majority end up in landfills. We saw this as an opportunity to give back to our wine-loving community, and Re-Cork C’Ville was born," said Liz Eure, director of marketing, Carpet Plus.

Carpet Plus shipped off more than 700,000 used wine stoppers (over 6,000 pounds) to be recycled into cork tiles. According to Duane Cassis, owner of Carpet Plus, the company will soon carry Yemm & Hart’s cork tiles to sell as flooring.

For more information, visit carpetplusonline.com.