Tarkett enables recycling vinyl flooring from COVID centers

ls Trompetty, a specialist in the installation of flooring solutions, in the past realized a vinyl floor for its customers ended up in the company waste after use. Through an innovation from flooring manufacturer Tarkett that is now a thing of the past. Recently, the two companies worked together to give more than 15,000 square feet of vinyl used for temporary COVID centers a second life.

Trompetty supplied virtually all of the temporary flooring at the GGD's XL and XXL testing and vaccination sites during the corona crisis. Almost all of the vinyl flooring used, tens of thousands of square feet, came from Tarkett. As procurement expanded, there was a growing realization that there was an opportunity for sustainability. Tarkett designed a logistics process that would allow reuse of the floors. Meanwhile, the companies collected vinyl flooring from several locations: AFAS Stadium, Enkhuizen, MECC Maastricht, Rotterdam Ahoy and Rotterdam Airport. Several other projects will follow. 

A second life for floors

An installation method without permanent bonding was chosen, allowing the floors to be removed without damaging the subfloor. This allows the vinyl flooring to be 100 percent recycled at Tarkett's recycling center in Clervaux, Luxembourg, and the modular subfloors to be reused.  

"What Tarkett can do with vinyl, the reuse of it, I haven't seen in the market before. Mighty fine," says Marcel Elsinghorst, director at Trompetty. "The GGD and its general contractor are obviously looking at this with interest as well. If you can suddenly reuse a product, which used to just be thrown away, then you are working less polluting." 

Marco van Bergen, Manager ReStart Program at Tarkett: "With these projects we show that we are able to make quick steps in our sustainable way of working. When we took on the assignment a few years ago, reusing the floors had not even been factored in. The fact that we succeeded proves how quickly we can realize new solutions. We have now successfully completed the first pilots and are looking forward to reusing even more floors from major locations."