| Dec. 19, 2002
News Release King County welcomes its newest member of the LinkUp program, Quarry Tile Company, which manufactures Eco-Tile, a ceramic tile made of approximately 70 percent recycled materials. LinkUp was developed to encourage businesses to use more recycled materials in the products they make. Eco-Tile is produced using a combination of recycled glass, recycled grinding paste from the computer industry and recycled soil/rock waste from the sand and gravel industry. Eco-Tile also contains reprocessed glaze waste from Quarry Tile Company's other manufacturing operations. Quarry Tile, from Spokane, Wash., was selected a LinkUp partner for several reasons. One is the company's use of mixed-color glass cullet, designated a priority material for increased recycling by King County's Solid Waste Division. The glass cullet is supplied by the TriVitro Corporation, Kent, Wash. TriVitro, another participant in the LinkUp program, manufactures recycled tumbled glass pebbles for home décor and hobbyist use as well as a recycled-glass grit used for blasting abrasive. After crushing the glass for its own products, TriVitro collects the dust and finely ground particles and sends it to Quarry Tile. Previously, the glass dust was disposed of in a landfill. The partnership is a win-win situation for both companies and for King County. The scrap material from TriVitro makes up about 25 percent of the recycled content used in Eco-Tile, and its use saves TriVitro more than $20,000 a year in disposal costs. The County benefits through increased demand for recycled glass generated and collected locally. LinkUp was launched two years ago to encourage manufacturers to incorporate more recycled materials into their products. The program, sponsored by the King County Solid Waste Division, offers free, customized technical and promotional support to eligible businesses. All of the recycled materials used in Eco-Tile come from within a 350-mile radius of Quarry Tile's manufacturing plant in Spokane. In addition to the mixed-glass cullet, the grinding paste used to make Eco-Tile is a manufacturing by-product from a computer CD manufacturer in Portland, Ore., and the soil and rock waste comes from Central Pre-Mix, a Spokane-area concrete manufacturer. In the past, the company had been using virgin clay, some of it trucked in from 2,300 miles away. Eco-Tile is available in more than 50 colors which the company calls Natural Hues. It comes in five sizes and in all of the trim shapes needed for floors and walls. The recycled-content tiles are becoming more popular in green-building construction and were recently used in the new Seattle Justice Center, a municipal building that incorporates a number of energy and resource efficient features. The LinkUp team will help Quarry Tile find new markets for its Eco-Tile line. Team members may provide some marketing support as well as material testing to provide independent verification of the product's breaking strength. As a participant in the LinkUp program, Quarry Tile Company joins other entrepreneurs who are manufacturing products using recycled materials. They are:
LinkUp works
with an average of six new businesses each year. For more information
about the LinkUp program, contact Erv Sandlin at 206-296-0233 or visit
http://dnr.metrokc.gov/linkup.
Waste
Reduction and Recycling Programs for Businesses Construction
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