Next on the tour was a journey across the Pennines and into Yorkshire. First stop on the list was CT Flooring in Barnsley, Recofloor’s 2019 Best Newcomer. They have been using the scheme for almost two years and collected a whopping 8 tonnes this year alone! It was nice to see how their projects use Recofloor and how Recofloor now, after some work, seamlessly integrates into their working practices.
FM Birch, Sheffield followed. Another one of our serial award winners and holder of the Outstanding Achievement award for 2019, I went to discuss what the key to their Recofloor success was and how we can get drop-off sites up and running with a consistent customer base faster.
Then it was up the M62 to Leeds. I spoke to the guys at FM Birch, Leeds, where I introduced myself to their latest recruit looking after Recofloor. We discussed how the scheme worked and I explained that their customers could bring back their vinyl offcuts free of charge and put the vinyl in the blue Recofloor bins. Once the two bins are full just give the Recofloor team a ring and we will pick it up. We also discussed how they could get the trade counter team to buy in to the scheme.
I had a similar discussion at Mercado in Leeds about 10 minutes down the road. Both Mercado and Wilkies have been in similar places when it comes to returning vinyl so it will be nice to see which one of them can come out on top and some friendly competition can be introduced.
After a productive day in Leeds I travelled to Humberside. After a night in the Premier Inn I went to visit the Hull branch of FM Birch. As one of our more solid collectors it was a fleeting visit just to check if everything was running smoothly. They are a good example of Recofloor running effortlessly and a distributor back hauling their contract customers vinyl.
On the same industrial estate are S&D Flooring. S&D have picked up several awards chiefly the Brand Ambassador award in 2017 and 2018 for their fantastic promotion of the scheme to their clients. I had a really good meeting with the team. They had a host of brilliant and innovative ways to help the Recofloor scheme grow and improve. They all had a genuine enthusiasm for the growth of sustainability in the flooring sector and keep an eye on their Twitter feed for how much vinyl ‘boys in blue’ are recycling.
The final call on the Hull leg of the tour was a rescheduled meeting with Hull Flooring, one of Recofloor’s earliest adopters and who have recycled over 150 tonnes over the last 10 years! We discussed how to maximise the use of their space with regards to Recofloor bags. We also discussed the adhesive bucket recycling trial we are conducting with F. Ball.
On my journey back to Manchester I needed to fill up. I was driving a hire car, a Nissan Juke. The bug-eyed ugly duckling of the micro SUV world. The Juke is different to my car as you need to pull a lever to open the fuel filler hatch. It’s between the door and the steering wheel just next to a very similar looking lever that opened the bonnet. No prizes for seeing where this is going, because let me tell you, when I was driving down the M18 and the bonnet rattled and flung open I couldn’t. I had to pull over quickly and put the bonnet back down in a mild panic. Who on earth would put the bonnet open next to the fuel hatch so that you could accidently pull it?!
