Crossville Announces 2017 Porcelain Recycling Program Milestones

All-time Porcelain Recycling Total Tops 114 Million Pounds of Fired Waste Diverted from Landfills

Officials with domestic tile manufacturer Crossville Inc. have announced the company recycled 23,447,883 pounds of fired porcelain in 2017, bringing the company’s cumulative recycling total to more than 114 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 can 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 114 million-plus cumulative pounds of the recycled material Crossville has 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 seventh consecutive year. Net waste consumption is achieved by using more waste than is created during production.

Here’s the break-out of Crossville’s total of 23,447,883 pounds of fired porcelain recycled in 2017.

• 12,225,850 pounds fired scrap product at the company’s plant
• 7,825,860 pounds of TOTO’s scrap porcelain
• 105,684 pounds of post-consumer waste from the Tile Take-Back® program

Additionally in 2017, Crossville removed 3,290,489 pounds of filtrate solids from dirty water and recycled back into tile production.

Tile Take-Back® and the TOTO USA partnership are just two of many sustainable practices Crossville maintains company-wide. For more information about all of Crossville’s sustainability practices, visit https://crossvilleinc.com/sustainability/.

About Crossville’s Recycling Initiatives

Tile Take-Back Program®

The Tile Take-Back® program is Crossville’s answer to the major environmental problem facing the tile industry today: the recycling of fired tile. Because this program is so beneficial throughout the industry, Crossville openly accepts post-consumer tile from other brands as well as projects not originating from Crossville.

TOTO USA Partnership

In 2011, Crossville launched a partnership with sanitaryware manufacturer TOTO USA to receive and recycle that company’s fired porcelain refuse. Today, there is recycled content in every square foot of porcelain tile produced by Crossville because of the harvested material from TOTO, reducing the need for raw materials for tile production.