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It’s flooring—and then some. Made for More.
START BY THINKING OF THE FINISH
Interface Head of Global Sustainability Strategy Liz Minné shares how the company’s ReEntry program is finding new purpose for used carpet through reuse, recycling, or recovery.
ReEntry, Scherpenzeel facility
Given the climate crisis, the planet can’t afford the luxury of 100% new anymore. As little as possible should go into landfill. That’s why it is so important to repurpose products – either through reuse, recycling, or recovery.
At Interface, we believe the circular economy is integral to creating a regenerative future. And as Head of Global Sustainability, developing circular solutions is a top priority for my team as we work to become carbon negative by 2040.
A big part of circularity is designing products with the full life cycle in mind. To reduce our carbon impact. To last a long time. To minimize waste. To be repurposed. And in 1995, Interface took a major step forward in our journey to repurpose products — the launch of our ReEntry™ program.
ReEntry, Scherpenzeel facility
ReEntry, Scherpenzeel facility
ReEntry, Scherpenzeel facility
Giving Used Carpet Tile a New Life
Since starting ReEntry, we’ve been continuously improving our thinking and our technical solutions to improve our products’ end of life. Today, carpet tiles using our CQuestBio and CQuestBioX backings now contain over 88% of recycled and bio-based material. And they are fully recyclable through ReEntry.
When customers send used carpet tiles back to us, we always start by looking to give them a second life through reuse. Often, they find a new home by local businesses, charities, and social enterprises.
When the best option is recycling, they go to our facility in Scherpenzeel, The Netherlands. There, we can immediately return these products to the production cycle and use them to make new carpet tiles for the European market. Any used tiles on our older Graphlex backing convert back into energy.
Collect More Carpet Tile. Store More Carbon.
I’m beyond thrilled that we have so many options available to repurpose used carpet tiles. Because extending the life cycle of our products and recycling them into new materials keeps carbon locked away out of the atmosphere. And we need everyone to do that.
Over the past eight years, we’ve collected more than 34,150 tonnes globally of post-consumer carpet tile through ReEntry, helping facilitate a circular economy for our flooring products. We want to collect even more.
All we need is for customers to give us back their used flooring. We’ll find a use for it.