THE PILLARS OF OUR AMBITION
Three words are at the foundation of everything we do:
Transparency, circularity and renewability
By centering what we do around these values, we ensure that everything that comes from Forbo Flooring Systems delivers value to both people and the planet.
MAKING NEW MARMOLEUM from a 20-year-old floor
Currently, circularity has not yet been achieved on a large scale in the building industry for flooring. Solutions are challenging when the flooring is glued to the subfloor, which is the case for most of the resilient flooring in use today.
Pioneering with circular Marmoleum
In 2021, a project was initiated with the Technical University of Delft in The Netherlands to take back 13,000 m2 of old Marmoleum which had been installed in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) for over 20 years. The challenge was to fully recycle these floors into brand new Marmoleum, a task which was quite uncommon. This first project laid the foundation for scaling up our take-back approach, demonstrating that installed Marmoleum can be successfully recycled and paving the way for further take-back volumes.
RECYCLING IN STEPS
Renovation is usually a matter of demolition and reconstruction, but the project for TU Delft required a more delicate approach. Both the subfloor and the floor covering needed to remain as intact as possible and contamination of the material had to be avoided. With a floor stripper, the Marmoleum was removed quickly and meticulously.
FROM FLAKES TO POWDER
Once removed from the building, the floor was sorted to remove undesired residual waste and was then scrapped and ground. About one third could be recycled in new linoleum, the rest was used for other industries.
FROM UNIVERSITY TO HEINEKEN
The Heineken Experience, the brewery museum, approached us for a circular solution for their new floors. In the end the floor from the University in Delft ended up in a new floor for the famous brewery in Amsterdam.
