Ceramic, Glass, Porcelain & Quartz: The True Green Manufacturers

by Kelly Gray

BDG Design Group, ASID Industry Partner

If you are considering remodeling your home, there are many options when it comes to recycled products.  These products can be used for flooring, countertops and wall tiles with beautiful finish options such as ceramic, glass, metal and porcelain.  Below are a few manufactures which focus on recycled products and take it a step further in the manufacturing process to reduce their footprint on this earth.

Ceramic:

Sonoma Tilemakers:
•  All clay is consciously excavated in the USA and Sonoma utilizes every bit of it.  Wet “scrap” clay is reconstituted back into usable wet clay.  All rejected tiles are crushed and donated to asphalt companies to be used as road and foundation base (replacing quarried stone).
•  All glazes are 100% lead-free and non-toxic.
•  Factory has 180 solar panels on the roof top.

Porcelain and Ceramic:

Royal Mosa:
•  99% of their products are Cradle-to-Cradle Silver certified.  The products do not release any harmful compounds during their life and do not damage the environment should they be dumped after use. 
•  Mosa tiles contain all raw natural materials and can be recycled.
•  The water used in their factories is purified in-house and reused in the production process. 
•  Mosa has modernized its entire factory which has resulted in a 91% reduction of particulate emissions to virtually zero as well as the drastic reduction of C02 emissions.

Ergon:

•  Their Green Tech collection is made with 40% post-industrial recycled materials and can help projects quality for 2 LEED points.
•  Their factories recycle all water used in the production process, drastically reducing consumption.
•  They use completely recycled materials for packing from the paper for the carton boxes, to the plastic wrappings and up to the wooden pallets for shipping.

Glass Tile:
 
 

Oceanside Glasstile:

•  The leader in recycled glass, Oceanside Glasstile uses two million pounds of bottle glass from curbside recycling programs
•  Their packaging is made up of 60% recycled materials.

UltraGlas:

·   UltraGlas-E is a new product by UltraGlas that is made from salvaged glass diverted from landfills.

Quartz:

Silestone by Cosentino:

•  Their Stellar Series contains 35% post-consumer recycled glass (we have Stellar Fire installed in our kitchen).
•  Eco by Cosentino is made of 75% recycled content composed of post-industrial materials and is bound by environmentally friendly resin.

Recycled Glass Counter Tops

Vetrazzo:

•  Their counter tops are comprised to 100% recycled glass (550 pounds used in each counter top).  The glass comes from traffic lights, windshields and beverage bottles.  Often times this is waste that cannot be recycled elsewhere.
•  Their factory operates on a closed-loop water filtration system, saving approximately 150,000 gallons of water per month.

Setting Materials:

It is also very important to consider Green setting materials.  Mapei is a leader in green setting products.

Please call or visit the BDG showroom to find out more about the Eco-Friendly products that we carry.  You can also go to www.bdgdesigngroup.com for more information.