KBB

KBB

News: 

Crossville Announces Latest Recycling Program Milestones

April 23, 2015

Crossville Inc. recycled 14,255,082 pounds of fired porcelain in 2014, bringing the company’s cumulative recycling total to nearly 53.5 million pounds since the 2009 launch of the Tile Take-Back program and subsequent TOTO USA recycling partnership.

These recycling initiatives are based on the company’s proprietary process for recycling fired porcelain products, including postconsumer materials. Through Tile Take-Back, Crossville is able to recycle previously installed tile collected from its distribution network, as well as scraps that result from tile cutting during installation, sizing or sample creation. Through its TOTO partnership, Crossville receives pre-consumer fired porcelain toilets that do not meet quality standards; prior to the partnership, the cast-offs were being sent to landfills for disposal.

All 53.5 million pounds of diverted material have been or will be recycled into feed stock to manufacture new tile, leading Crossville to maintain net waste consumption at its plants for a fourth consecutive year. Net waste consumption is achieved by using more waste than is created during production.

Through its recycling initiatives, Crossville achieved the following in 2014:

  • Ground and reused 6,040,062 lbs of fired scrap produced at the company’s plants that would have previously gone to landfills
  • Received and recycled 160,640 lbs of waste including scraps and post-consumer tile extracted from renovation projects (up from 87,411 lbs in 2013)
  • Received and recycled 8,054,380 lbs of TOTO’s scrap porcelain—an increase of 765,520 lbs from 2013

Crossville officials note that amount of fired porcelain waste acquired from the marketplace as part of Tile Take-Back increased significantly in 2014, indicating increased support and participation from the company’s distribution network. Likewise, the amount of scrap porcelain from TOTO was up in 2014, further contributing to the yearly and cumulative totals.