NEW SERVICE SPOTLIGHT: Rubber Flooring Recycling Partnership

Roppe Corporation, a maker of rubber and vinyl flooring, has announced a strategic partnership with Starnet® Worldwide, the Commercial Flooring Partnership, through Roppe’s IMPACT program. Introduced in June 2009, IMPACT is its rubber products recycling program.

Starnet Worldwide is a commercial flooring network with more than 170 independently owned and operated flooring contractor members in North America.

Rick Rollins, director of specifications for Roppe Holding Company, said, “As a preferred vendor with Starnet for the past seven years, we have grown to rely on the members and their relationships with our distributor partners as a way to grow our business as well as theirs.”

At the point that a facility decides to renovate a space and replace its Roppe rubber flooring products, these can be recycled within the Roppe’s IMPACT Recycling program.

Through the partnership, Roppe is offering a .01¢ per pound incentive for every pound recycled by the Starnet members, to be accrued over a one-year period. At the 2011 Starnet Annual Meeting, Roppe will announce the grand total of recycled products generated from Starnet partners and present them with a contribution check payable to the Wounded Warrior Project as appreciation of their commitment tot the program.

The IMPACT program begins with products being gathered at a job site in recycled Gaylord containers for return to Roppe’s recycling partner. After being processed, the materials will be made into other products. In the past, there was no real solution for recycling rubber product with adhesive other than scraping to remove the old adhesive prior to return for recycling. After extensive research and development, a new proprietary process was engineered that alleviates this problem.

Says Jeremy Whipple, marketing manager for Roppe Holding Company, “Many of our contractor partners have expressed that the process will ultimately end up being cost neutral when considering the cost to landfill the products versus shipping them to our recycling partner.”

The following Roppe products have been approved for this recycling process:

  • Pinnacle Rubber Base
  • AlphaBase®
  • BaseMates®
  • Pinnacle Plus Wall Base
  • Rubber Corner Blocks
  • Dimensions Rubber Tile
  • Smooth and Marbleized Rubber Tile
  • Raised Design Rubber Tile and Tread
  • SafeTcork® Rubber Tile and Tread
  • Fiesta® Rubber Tile and Tread
  • SafeTcork® Fiesta® Rubber Tile and Tread
  • Designer’s Choice® Rubber Tile
  • Spike/Skate Resistant Tile
  • Recoil Fitness Flooring
  • Tuflex® Recycled Rubber Tile and Rubber Accessories