Page 3 - 2018-04-CFR Volume 115 - Recycled Content in Flooring Material - April 2018

I’ve been in this industry 47 years and have some April
very close contacts and there aren’t any real scien-
tists making flooring material. So all of the sales sto-
ries you hear on many of these products are just
that. Like the warranty for resisting dust on an LVP
product. Really, so now we’ve defied the laws of
gravity?
Black is not Green –Flooring that contains recycled
content that disrupts the integrity of the product and
has to be replaced is not green. Everyone gets ex-
cited about the use of recycled materials in hard
flooring but thinks nothing of the havoc it may create.
If the product containing recycled content fails or
causes a failure necessitating replacement not only
is the product wasted but so is the money spent on
labor, law suits, replacement and ill will created.
Where’s the rational thinking then?
One product we have to look at is crumb rubber. It
contains over 200 chemicals some of which are oil,
phthalates, solvents which are also petroleum based,
VOC’s, heavy metals, reinforcing agents and stabi-
lizers as well as chemical fillers such as carbon
black, silica, resin, antioxidants, waxes, adhesion
promoters, sulfur and the list goes on. We have
seen flooring tiles made of this product curl and dis-
tort over time as chemical components from it
volatize creating changes in the material itself and in
flooring materials that come in contact with it. Crumb
rubber flooring products with SBR rubber and a soup
of chemicals does not go well with PVC based prod-
ucts such as any vinyl flooring material. This is just

plain simple chemistry. These chemicals can leach
out of the crumb rubber and create havoc with the
vinyl flooring materials it comes in contact with. The
phthalates in either of the materials will react and
mess up the vinyl flooring causing it to distort, dome
and other wise change dimensionally.

3 Commercial Flooring Report