The Kevin Bates Flooring & Carpeting Group, South African distributor of leading global carpet tile producer, Interface, is making major progress towards adding to the highly successful sustainability initiatives conducted by Interface manufacturing plants world-wide.

Master Builders Association North member, Kevin Bates Flooring & Carpeting (KBAC), which has Albert Carpets in Cape Town as Group member, has locally adapted Interface’s  “Re-entry” programme which sets out to prevent carpeting that has become worn out, outdated - or no longer regarded as fashionable by interior designers - ending up in landfills.

“Carpets dumped in landfills are not bio-degradable due to the high oil content in the nylon fibres and backings used to produce the carpets,” explains Neil Duncan, Chief Financial Officer of KBAC, and a former president of MBA North. “So, to keep the old carpets from landfills, we now seek needy organisations and institutions which would benefit from the winter warmth and quality of life such still usable carpeting would bring, and donate the unwanted carpets to them.”

Due to the costs associated with shipping ‘old’ product overseas to be included in the Interface Re-Entry programmes for recycling at the Interface mills, this local initiative – which also has strong social responsibility elements - has been created by KBAC and is referred to as “Re–Use”.

Brandon Park, Sales Director of KBAC, says in South Africa carpets installed in commercial properties and upmarket residential complexes typically have a lifespan of between seven to 10 years before replacement and possible “rebranding” are introduced by the property owners.

“After removing the unwanted carpets, we identify worthy recipients such as schools, community centres, NGOs and any other places where young, old and infirm members of deprived communities are housed, as recipients.  The response to date has been tremendously positive with a recent recipient - a school in Braamfontein - informing us that the carpets we donated will ‘go a long way in preparing classrooms for the cold winter months to come and help the school maintain its departmental health certificate’,” Park adds.

Interface, whose European factory based in Scherpenzeel Netherlands,has, since the beginning of this year, been operating with 100% renewable energy, using 100% recycled water in its manufacturing processes, and has attained a zero waste to landfill level.

“It is in this latter respect, in particular, that we are so pleased to see the progress KBAC has made in finding new homes for the used Interface carpet tiles that were for many years dumped in South African landfills,” Rob Boogaard, interim CEO of Interface Europe, said on a recent visit to South Africa.

Boogaard, a member of the Prince of Wales’s EU Corporate Leaders Group, said Interface has vowed to have zero impact on the environment by 2020. “This will be in stark contrast to our early days when Interface used so much oil in our carpet production processes that we could have been considered an offshoot of the petrochemical industry. Our products were also landfilled at the end of their useful life, contributing even more long-lasting damage to the planet,” he stated.

As part of its global sustainability drive, Interface in Europe and the USA takes back for recycling, in some form or other, any old carpeting it removes. The company is also financially rewarding fishing villagers in areas as far afield as the Philippines to collect old fishing nets that are then converted into raw materials for new carpet production. Some of the old nets recovered were buried in shoreline sand, others floated to the ocean floor where they were causing substantial environmental damage through ‘ghost fishing’. The “Net-Works” programme - developed in partnership with the London Zoological Society - has become a successful community-based supply chain for collecting discarded fishing nets which now provides the yarn for Interface’s ocean-inspired. ‘Net Effect’, the company’s latest carpet tile innovation.

“In conjunction with our yarn suppliers, we now have equipment and machinery that can reprocess nylon from old carpets fibres and even fishing nets - into a 100% recycled yarn to manufacture new carpets.” Boogaard explains.  “This technologically advanced machinery is unfortunately not available in South Africa.”

Interface Europe has also started a programme in which farmers in India are growing castor beans to reduce the company’s dependency on oil for carpet production. On average, 45% of the raw materials used by the company in production are now derived from recycled sources.

Neil Duncan says KBAC is hoping that the example the Group has set in South Africa will be followed by the rest of the local industry. “We have introduced the Re-Use programme at both KBAC’s Gauteng and Western Cape operations,” he stated.

Mohau Mphomela, Executive Director of Master Builders Association North, says MBA North is extremely proud of this pioneering recycling achievement by one of its most exemplary members – “a member which has already set new benchmarks in training for the South African floor covering industry”.

Kevin Bates Flooring & Carpeting in 2012 achieved a milestone in formalised training in the industry by obtaining Construction Education Training Authority accreditation for 16 of its staff members. The learners successfully completed the National Certificate in Construction: Installation of Floor Coverings NQF Level 1, a basic qualification focussing on either carpet or vinyl floor coverings.
A further 15 staff members completed the qualification in 2013.

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