Crossville, Tenn.–Officials with domestic tile manufacturer Crossville Inc. announced the company recycled 16,939,634 pounds of fired porcelain in 2015, bringing the company’s cumulative recycling total to just over 70 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 post-consumer 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, these cast-offs were being sent to landfills for disposal, but now they are recycled for use in manufacturing new tile.
All 70 million-plus cumulative pounds of the recycled material Crossville diverted from landfills have been or will be introduced into the tile production process. This use of recycled material during manufacturing results in Crossville maintaining its status as a net consumer of waste for a fifth consecutive year. Net waste consumption is achieved by using more waste than is created during production.