Leading vinyl take-back scheme Recofloor is celebrating 15 years of successful recycling with a flooring sustainability day at the Belfry Hotel & Resort in Sutton Coldfield on Friday 25th April 2025.
Sponsored by scheme founders Altro and Polyflor and hosted by sustainability champion Chris Hines MBE, the event is free to attend and open to anyone in the flooring industry. The programme will feature talks on flooring sustainability topics by leaders from across the sector including Morgan Sindall, Bam Construction, European Resilient Flooring Manufacturers’ Institute, CFA, Recoflor members and Altro and Polyflor representatives alongside the 2025 Recofloor awards ceremony.
“We’re looking forward to welcoming members and non-members alike to celebrate success, share knowledge, and inspire action,” explains Recofloor Scheme Manager, Carla Eslava.
Recofloor was originally launched by Altro and Polyflor in 2009 as a collaborative project to tackle vinyl flooring waste. Collecting both post-installation and post-consumer vinyl, the scheme provides the flooring industry with a sustainable, economical and easy-to-use way to divert waste vinyl from landfill. The material collected is then used in new flooring and in plastic products such as traffic cones.
From a first-year total of just 66 collectors, 19 drop-off locations and 150 tonnes collected, the scheme has built a large national network and is widely recognised for its contribution to increasing recycling in the industry. There are now 66 drop-off locations and over 450 members, and a total of over 7,500 tonnes has been diverted from landfill or incineration. This approximates to 8,798 tonnes of CO2 savings – the same as taking 2,296 cars off the road in a year.
Scheme membership is free, with practical member benefits being key to Recofloor’s success. For larger amounts of waste, collections can be arranged directly from site or from contractor premises, and at a significantly lower cost than traditional disposal methods. Smaller amounts can be dropped off at no charge at participating distributor sites nationwide.
Not only do scheme members save money, they are also able to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability. This in turn helps bring in new business.
“Joining Recofloor to recycle our vinyl offcuts has boosted my company enormously.” says flooring contractor Tim Brown from Commercial Flooring Bristol Ltd. “From saving on skips and reducing material going to landfill, to winning awards and being able to showcase recycling on our website which has brought us in lots of new work, Recofloor is great! Everyone in flooring should become a member.”
Importantly, Recofloor have recognised that it is vital to bring the supply chain together to increase use of the scheme.
“Change depends on all of us,” says Carla. “To maximise waste reduction will take an industry-wide approach. Architects, specifiers, facilities managers, main contractors, flooring contractors – it’s essential that everyone incorporates sustainability into their planning, decision-making, and day-to-day practices.”
With this in mind, next steps for Recofloor include strengthening relationships and building more industry collaborations. At the same time, the team will be working to reinforce messaging to ensure that material collected meets recycling specifications.
To increase re-use and support local communities, the team will also be working to develop community links that will help them find new homes for good quality vinyl.
More information about Recofloor is at www.recofloor.org, with the Belfry Hotel event details and online booking form at www.recofloor.org/awards-event.
