Why recycle flooring?

You hear many claims about recycling these days and it can be hard to separate fact from fiction, rumor from reality. "Recyclable" is often just a promise. Everyday, tonnes of carpet tile and LVT are discarded; most of it ending up in landfill and often nowhere near the end of its useful life. So why throw away that valuable resource?

Each year Interface diverts millions of Kg's of used, post-consumer carpet from landfills around the world. That's tonnes and tonnes of carbon saved from polluting the environment. As the New Zealand supplier for Interface, Inzide are proud to be supporting this product stewardship initiative called, ReEntry. Inzide is the only New Zealand Flooring supplier with MfE accreditation for recycling. So you have to ask, what are all the other suppliers doing with their “recyclable” products?

Take, make, waste, ends here... But only with your help.


David Coombes, MD of Flight Centre and Antonia Walmsley from Unispace acknowledged the value in this circular way of thinking when the time came to re-fit the 124 Vincent Street, Head Office in Auckland’s CBD. David had this to say; "In everything we do we look to minimise our impact on the environment. We were pleased to learn that recycling was an option for the carpet tile in the old office space and are very proud to have supported the ReEntry initiative from Interface."  1950m2 (11 tonnes) of Interface carpet tile was the existing floor covering to be uplifted and of course, replaced with Interface carpet for a further 15 years.

The Old

Niche Flooring were the contractors who lifted the clean, existing carpet tiles prior to demolition and prepared them for transportation to the Inzide, Auckland Warehouse where the pallets were loaded into a container and shipped to the Interface Mill in Minto, NSW, Australia to go through the proprietary ReEntry process.

Sheree from Niche is a fantastic supporter of Interface and was excited to be part of a project where the right thing was being done. “We knew that recycling was part of this job at the very start and embraced the challenge as we previously haven't come across this requirement. Inzide provided us with a simple to follow set of guidelines for the uplift and arranged the rest. It was surprisingly simple and added minimal labour cost. It was a pleasure to know that in some small way we contributed to bettering our environment.",

The New

When it came to the design of the new floor it needed to be simple but still exude the Flight Centre brand and meet a tight budget. Antonia from Unispace was the lead designer for this project and had this to say; "Interface were really supportive in finding the best solution to support the design vision and bold graphic statements for each floor. The ability to recycle their existing product and the environmental philosophy of Interface was a huge bonus and added to the overall story of the fitout & Flight Centre as a company. I enjoyed working with the team at Inzide throughout this project. We achieved a result that looks fantastic; was installed on time, on budget and without hassle."

Niche Flooring expertly installed the new floor for this project, laying carpet tile from two Interface collections; Basics and Online in an offset pattern.

We are sure you will agree that the overall look and feel is very much, Flight Centre.

The Process

New Zealand ReEntry

Step   One – Assessment

Clean,   full sized Interface GlasBac or GlasBacRe carpet tiles   and Interface LVT can be recycled through ReEntry out  of New Zealand.

(We are unable  to recycle competitor’s tiles, as there is no way of proving the contents for  shipping.)

Step   Two – Uplift

Customer  to organise contractor to uplift the product and package according to our Recycling   Guidelines.

Step   Three – Drop off

Contractor   to arrange delivery of uplifted product to 1 of the 3 Inzide collection  depots NZ wide;

1. Auckland: Inzide Commercial Warehouse, 131   Montgomerie Rd, Airport Oaks, Mangere.

2. Wellington: Owens Logistics, 5-7 Toop Street, Seaview.

3. Christchurch: Owens Logistics, 31 Baigent Way, Middleton.

Step   Four – Shipping

Inzide  arranges the transportation of the clean, uplifted, palletised flooring and   ships it to the Interface Mill in Minto, Australia for processing.

Step   Five – Recycling

The   carpet tile or LVT goes through the proprietary recycling process at the Interface, Minto Mill. It is split into two key inputs for the carpet tile  manufacturing process, sheared yarn and backing granules. The yarn then goes  back into the yarn production stream and the backing granules are included in the production of the GlasBacRE backing with an extremely high-recycled  content %, ready to live out another 15 years on the floor.