The first official recycling programme specifically aimed at the local vinyl flooring industry was recently launched in South Africa.

Polyflor South Africa was responsible for coming up with the new programme and its CEO, Tandy Coleman, said that the need for an official recycling initiative has been a long time coming. She added that it was also in line with one of the key objectives of the South African Vinyl Association’s (SAVA) Product Stewardship Programme.

“The vinyl flooring market has seen a tremendous growth in recent years and there has not yet been an official programme set in place for the recycling of off-cuts from installations,” Coleman said.

Polyflor UK was one of the founding members of Recofloor – the vinyl take-back scheme that started in Europe in 2009 and collects post-consumer vinyl flooring for recycling into new flooring.

This initiative recycled a record amount of 508 tonnes of post-consumer waste vinyl flooring last year alone – enough to cover 23 football fields – and continues to grow.

Vinyl floors not recycled as much as they should be

According to Coleman, used vinyl floors are currently not being recycled as much as they should be as glue and screed are also attached to the floors after they have been removed.

“There is currently no technology available in South Africa that can separate glue residue from the vinyl for recycling, but in the meanwhile we believe it is important to make a difference where we can.” Coleman said. “Every piece of off-cut that we can recycle will help to alleviate the strain on the country’s landfills and natural resources.”

Vinyl floor off-cuts for recycling

Polyflor contractors will soon be given special branded bags to place their off-cuts in and return to the company’s head office where it will be weighed and recorded before it is collected by recyclers.

“We have arranged with the major recyclers of vinyl around the country to collect the material from our premises for recycling into a wide variety of products, including traffic management products and gum boots,” she said.

Commenting on this recycling initiative, SAVA’s CEO Delanie Bezuidenhout said they welcomed any pro-active steps taken by industry members to take responsibility for their own waste.

“We have made a firm commitment to increase responsibility and sustainability within the PVC industry as a whole,” she said, but added that “one of the key challenges outlined within this product stewardship programme has been the commitment to increase recycling.”