Ceiling recycling pioneer Armstrong is celebrating smashing its green target for 2014.
The service, which is free of charge for contractors, notched up some 117,000m2 or 465 tonnes of old End Of Life (EOL) or new off-cut (OCR) mineral ceiling tiles last year, smashing its target of 100,000m2.
All of the returned material, including from the first projects in Ireland, has been or will be used in the manufacture of new mineral ceiling tiles, saving the company more than £35,000 in virgin materials. The service will have also saved contractors tens of thousands of pounds in landfill taxes.
The project which delivered the greatest return in 2014 was the Farnborough International Airshow (13,400m2) which Armstrong has been involved in with its EOL service since 2008 although 2014 was the first time the show had used the company’s OCR service.
Its EOL service was also brought into play at refurbishments for TSB in Bradley Stoke, a Science Park in Cambridge and Green Park, Reading as well as complete strip-outs for General Dynamics in Newbridge, Primark’s head office in Dublin, Franklin House in Birmingham and Plas Glyndwr in Cardiff. The OCR service featured at Glasgow Southern General Hospital and both EOL and OCR featured at Blackpool Fylde College.
Most of the projects (49%) used Armstrong’s EOL service for refurbishment applications, with some 27% using the EOL service on complete strip-out or demolition projects where the building was going through a change of use – typically office blocks into apartments where the requirement for suspended ceilings was less. Some 24% of the projects were for the OCR service on new installations.
Main contractors who embraced the recycling services included Carillion, Wates, Wilmott Dixon, Brookfield Multiplex Construction Europe, Overbury, Costain and Bowmer & Kirkland.
Armstrong’s recycling sales development manager Roy Smith said: “Exceeding our 2014 target to this degree is a fantastic result which has been helped by the sales team’s drive to the customer base and the fact that the concept is becoming more readily embraced by all customer sectors, be they main contractors, sub-contractors or specifiers.”
Armstrong pioneered ceiling recycling with its EOL service in the UK in 2003 but it is not just this service which places the company at the forefront of the green movement. In 2013, the 10th anniversary of its recycling services, Armstrong also became the world’s first manufacturer of mineral ceiling tiles to win Cradle to Cradle status.
And it reinforced this last year by winning the same status for a complete range of mineral ceiling tiles – the Ultima+ range.
