Commercial Flooring Contractors Ltd specialises in larger private and public sector flooring projects. A Recofloor member for nearly 10 years, the South Wales-based company uses the scheme on projects wherever possible.

Sustainability is at the core of the company’s ethos, and a key reason for signing up to Altro and Polyflor’s commercial waste vinyl flooring collection scheme.

In 2020, Commercial Flooring Contractors Ltd worked on two major temporary NHS Rainbow Hospitals. For Chris, deploying Recofloor with its approach to closed-loop recycling ‘was an obvious choice’. The main contractor was Port Talbot-based Andrew Scott Ltd.

The hospitals were set up as a 290-bed facility at Wales Rugby Union’s National Centre of Excellence in Cardiff and the Parc Y Scarlets Rugby Stadium in Llanelli to treat coronavirus patients, if needed, in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chris specified the use of Polyflor QuickLay PUR and Polyflor 2000 PUR vinyl safety flooring, knowing that it was suitable for the application and was capable of being fully recycled through Recofloor when no longer needed.

It took 34 floor layers and around two weeks to install the flooring: 4,680 sqm at the WRU site in Cardiff and 5,780 sqm at the Scarlets Stadium in Llanelli. Key challenges for Chris and his team were the speed at which the temporary hospitals were constructed and having to work socially distanced alongside other trades on site.

“We had to work within very short timescales, making it extremely challenging but also very rewarding too. “Polyflor were more than helpful with deliveries and stocking for both of these projects, including Martin Fletcher who was a tremendous help,” Chris adds.

When the temporary NHS facilities were decommissioned, having fortunately not received any coronavirus patients and therefore no contamination risk, the majority of the flooring was stored to be reused in the future and rest was being stripped-out.

For both projects, post-installation offcuts, roll-ends and later the stripped-out flooring were collected by Recofloor.

Recofloor Scheme Manager Carla Eslava explains that communication was key in easing the challenges at the time. Prior to collecting the material, several tasks had to be coordinated and agreed with all parties so that it could be collected successfully. Collaboration between the main contractor and the flooring contractor in collecting, palletising and arranging the bulk bags for collection was important to guarantee smooth collections.

The main circumstantial issues for these two projects were the Government restrictions and staff constraints due to furlough. Therefore, collecting large volumes from sites was not an easy task, but everyone was keen to see the material recycled.

In total, Recofloor saved more than 11 tonnes of uncontaminated recyclable waste vinyl from landfill.

Successfully using Recofloor at the two hospital sites earned Commercial Flooring Contractors Ltd the 2021 Project of the Year award and a 2021 Gold Award in the annual Recofloor Awards. Chris adds: “It is great to get the recognition with this Recofloor award, which acknowledges the environmental efforts of flooring sector participants across the UK. And it’s a pat on the back for my lads as well.”

Recofloor is the flooring sector’s sustainable take-back scheme for commercial waste vinyl generated from all types of projects. Material is recycled and used in new products, including flooring. If you are thinking of deploying Recofloor on a project site, please get in touch to discuss your requirements.