Conservation

How we manufacture is as important as what we manufacture – so conservation has many faces at our company. It begins with wise use of energy, water and the habitat surrounding our manufacturing facilities. And it continues with smarter use and reuse of materials, helping us become a Net User of Waste.

A Net User of Waste

We believe that it is possible to take in, and use, more waste than we output. In fact, as a company we're absolutely committed to it, not as a magic formula but as a simple, measurable equation:

First, this means that we have drastically decreased the amount of waste that we produce, continually improving our product formulations and practices to produce flooring as cleanly and efficiently as possible.

But it also means that we claim waste from other manufacturers, and recycle it into our products. When materials from the carpet, flooring and other industries are on the way to landfill, we step in and reclaim it, using it to increase the amount of post-consumer recycled materials in our products. We have invested heavily in new technologies, infrastructure, product designs and processes that help us capture and incorporate recycled content into new, quality Mannington Commercial products.

Drywall to Flooring

When we learned about the massive amounts of drywall choking landfills, we redesigned our Premium Tile to incorporate pulverized gypsum which is claimed from regional construction sites. We are the only flooring manufacturer incorporating drywall into flooring.

Closing the LOOP™.

Billions of pounds of carpet go to America's landfills, every year. Mannington Commercial’s LOOP™ carpet reclamation program allows you to recycle your old carpet with just one phone call. Through this program, like many carpet manufacturers we are diverting this waste stream by recycling post consumer carpet tile into new carpet backing. But because we are also manufacturers of hard-surface flooring, we have found ways to incorporate post consumer carpet into resilient sheet – such as Relay RE, which is 20% post consumer and 15% post-industrial waste. We also recycle post consumer VCT into new VCT and resilient sheet, and post consumer resilient sheet into new wall base. Learn more about LOOP here.

Sample return is simple reuse

Simple actions can add up to big impact. We offer a postage-paid return label for every commercial product sample that we ship. So when you are finished with your project, rather than throwing it into the dumpster, drop that sample in the mail. We will send it on to the next user; and at the end of its useful life, we donate samples to local charities, churches, schools and civic groups.

Dematerialization of packaging

When shipping tiles and other products, we have reduced packaging to ship our carpet and hard surface products through using shrinkwrap – using 90% less materials by weight. We also reuse packaging such as the twelve foot cardboard core tubes from our New Jersey facilities for our operation in Georgia where they are cut in half and used as shipping cores for carpet, then eventually recycled.

CARE: the Carpet America Recovery

As commercial carpet manufacturers, we are long-time members of the Carpet America Recovery Effort, a joint industry and government effort working to reduce carpet going to landfills through better collection infrastructure and serving as a resource for technical, economic and market development opportunities for recovered carpet. To learn more about CARE and our contributions, visit www.carpetrecovery.org.

Water Conservation

Water is a key component in manufacturing every product in our portfolio and is a precious natural resource. We have are working to reduce its use in our processes. For example, our Calhoun, GA, carpet manufacturing facilities reduced water consumption by 35% between 2007 & 2011. Much of this progress due to improved dyeing methodologies.

Protecting Wetlands

Creating natural landscape buffers to stop erosion and runoff

We partnered with the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and local schools to build a natural buffer between our New Jersey facilities and the adjoining wetlands. This buffer is a transitional area between land and water, also called a ‘riparian buffer,’ In nature, these overgrown areas next to a stream or estuary stop erosion and sediment runoff, provide cover, and offer needed food and shade to fish and animals.

We planted hundreds of native shrubs and trees alongside Mannington facilities. More recently, Mannington volunteers, together with the NJ Audubon Society, planted another 3,000 trees and native plants in a 12 acre riparian zone. This was a 3-phase planting that was completed in May of 2010. By planting this riparian buffer we established an area of shrub-scrub habitat with a life expectancy of over 30 years (eventually succeeding to forest). During the first 30+ years of establishment, the project will provide habitat for bird species of concern: blue-winged warbler, eastern kingbird, brown thrasher, prairie warbler, eastern towhee & field sparrow. To learn more visit the New Jersey Audubon and the Delaware Estuary.

Other actions are as simple as converting mowed lawns at our facilities to natural landscaping. Creating wildlife habitats with wildflowers and native grasses reduces water use and eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers as well as the wasted energy and pollution created by mowing. The results are both smart and beautiful.

Migratory Birds Instead of Pesticide

"The Purple Martin Project": Cultivating bird migration for pest control

How is the habitat and housing of birds directly related to product manufacturing? Our headquarters in southern New Jersey is located in one of the region’s largest tidal wetlands. As a result, there are insects, some of which are attracted to our product components and become easily trapped in the wet ‘wearlayer’ of the product, possibly resulting in product defects.

In the mid-1980’s, a few associates were convinced that there was a more natural option than pesticides. Thus, we installed houses for Purple Martins, birds that migrate from Brazil to the United States for the summer months – and that eat massive amounts of insects. This “Purple Martin Project” has proven to be the most environmentally friendly and cost effective way to deal with the insects. Today, Purple Martins east of the Rockies are entirely dependent upon man-made houses – which on our property are found adjacent to the manufacturing buildings. With the help of our birds, and the continuing use of screens and bug-proof entries, our insect problem is now more manageable. For more on purple martins click here.