Crossville Urban Renewal Tile
3 March 2010
“Green, Green”
This is clearly not the time to be opening a new business, especially for someone like myself who would have to borrow heavily to do so, but if I were inclined to take such a leap, I think the thing I would most want to do is to put together some kind of a company that sells tile. And especially, I think I would like to do it on the Internet, so that my readers could avail themselves of the tile designs I am forever writing about. Every time I do it I am certain that this is to be the last blog on tile, and then along comes another.
In my own California, the Central Valley is known as one of the most fertile places on earth, because of the many crops that can be grown there, up to and including things like cotton, which is a product outsiders would never connect with the Golden State. But I bring up the Central Valley because tile design is a lush world all unto itself. It just seems to me that any kind of desi
gn seed that is dropped into the bountiful basin of ceramic tile is bound to bring forth a shoot that will quickly grow into a new plant that astounds and amazes. Our case in point is Crossville, one of the more innovative-and environmentally conscious-tile manufacturers I have yet come across.
I think that anyone who tears out old tile and replaces it with new must, at some point, find himself thinking about the waste of such a venture. Oh, believe me when I say the tile in my bathrooms and kitchen has absolutely had it, but when you rip that stuff out, you’re left with a pile of tile that goes straight to the land fill. And, more likely than not, you will replace it with more tile, to be replaced years hence, no doubt, with still more tile. Nowadays we talk a lot about “going green,” but I always find myself asking how much a savings that sort of thing is going to be if it involves tearing out the old first. Well, as it turns out, the folks at Crossville are doing something about that.
In the past lots of tile manufacturers have successfully reused scrap powders and unfired tile, but once tile is fired, it could no longer be reused. Until now. Crossville has developed a system for processing ceramic and porcelain tile back into powder used in manufacturing new tile, so now some four million pounds of tile that they previously sent to local landfills can be recycled. And they’ve gone further than that, because they have set up a tile take-back program.
Some of the tile we’re featuring here are from the Urban Renewal line by Crossville, which has a 50% post-consumer recycled content. This line features intricate patterns with rich metal finishes, from elegant satin bronzes to aged irons. It also uses real metal accent and trim pieces, which makes it look like metal which would be much heavier than the tile itself, which is lightweight and easy to install.
Crossville, Inc. is located in the city of Crossville, Tennessee, and is the largest domestic manufacturer of porcelain stone. It also operates the first U.S. tile plant designed to manufacture large-unit porcelain tiles, which I wanted to point out, as these tiles can be used for both walls and floors, including outdoor floors, which explains the idyllic picture at the top of this blog. I don’t know how green it is on the far side of the hill, but with manufacturing techniques like their tile take-back program, Crossville appears mighty green to me!
Joseph
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