Columbia store helps keep carpeting out of landfills

Dave Griggs’ Flooring America adds a sustainability element to flooring by offering customers and installers an opportunity to recycle used materials. It also offers several flooring options for those who are looking for environmentally conscious flooring.
The Columbia store has been recycling carpet cushion for approximately 10 years. “These bales are about 800 pounds a piece, which is around three to five Dumpsters full,” said store owner Dave Griggs as he stood next to three large bales of soft and brightly color-spackled bound carpet cushion.
Griggs said his store found it cost effective to begin recycling used carpet cushion in an effort to keep the nonbiodegradable material out of the landfill. The store began recycling carpet cushion in partnership with its carpet cushion supplier, E.R. Carpenter Company, one of the largest cushion supply manufacturers in the country.
Store employees collect the used cushion, bind it in the 800-pound bales and place them in a trailer. When E.R. Carpenter Company delivers a new batch of carpet cushion, they take the used material back with them to be broken down and turned into new cushions made of the recycled materials.

Not only does Dave Griggs’ Flooring America recycle used cushion from its installation jobs, but it also offers a cost incentive to other flooring installers to recycle. “With the tool incentive and recycling carpet cushion, we have the ability to attract more installers to bring stuff in,” Griggs said. Depending on cushion market value, Griggs offers store credit or cash to those who drop off cushion to be recycled.
Consumers get more dollars worth of credit than cash to encourage them to purchase flooring tools from Griggs’ pro shop. “So if we give you 6 cents per pound in store credit, we would probably give you 3 cents per pound in cash,” Griggs said.
As a result of the tool incentive, Griggs said installers are coming from 80 to 90 miles away to recycle their cushion. “So it’s a triple win,” Griggs said. “That’s a win for us financially with my pro shop because it sells the products. That’s a win for the installers because they save money. And it’s a tremendous win for the community because this stuff isn’t going in the landfill.” In 2010, approximately 475,000 pounds of recycled cushion were kept out of the landfill. That works out to about 593 of those 800-pound bales.
When Go Green Carpet Recycling of Kansas City contacted Dave Griggs’ Flooring America with news of plans to expand out of the Kansas City region two months ago, Griggs decided it was time to also undertake carpet recycling. Griggs said, “I pay Go Green to pick up the carpet from us because it’s basically the same price as what it would cost to put it in the landfill, and it’s just the right thing to do.”

The process of recycling carpet at the Go Green facilities, according to Griggs, includes shaving off the face fiber of the carpet, and that fiber is melted back down into pellets to make new fiber. Then it is placed into a machine that breaks the backings apart. “All the face fibers are recyclable, and most of the backing materials are recyclable,” Griggs said.
Besides recycling used carpet, the company also offers several options for those who are environmentally conscious. “Columbia is a very ‘green’ community,” Griggs said. “I’ve always tried to bring in new recycled products because there is a strong market for recycled products in Columbia, and I’m trying to be creative in what I bring in to meet that niche market.”
Griggs said his store offers carpets made out of recycled materials, corn resins and recycled PET polyester, which is made from 2-liter plastic bottles. Dave Griggs’ Flooring America also carries bamboo flooring among other environmentally conscious choices.
Dave Griggs’ Flooring America is a member of the Flooring America organization, which has approximately 500 storefronts across the United States. Each owner owns one share of stock in the company, and the company functions as a cooperative in which profits above operating cost are returned to the owners. “Flooring America is part of an organization called CCA Global Partners, which is the largest retailer of floor coverings in the world,” Griggs said.