Providing an updated focus on two valued Carpet Recycling UK members: Spruce Carpets in Govan, Glasgow and Hamilton Waste and Recycling of Musselburgh, East Lothian.

Since 2008 when Carpet Recycling UK was founded, one social enterprise has provided unstinting support to Carpet Recycling UK through membership, attending and speaking at our events and networking with our enquiries and membership, providing an outlet for trade surplus carpets, vinyl and carpet tiles as well as tiles from office refurbishments.

Spruce Carpets have been providing high quality affordable flooring since 2005.  With a focus on harnessing carpet for the reuse market, Spruce is a social enterprise with charitable status providing training and work experience opportunities for people who have found themselves excluded from the job market.   For the customer, they offer supply and fit of new end of season and roll end/remnant carpets that would otherwise be going to landfill.   

The focus is to provide good quality floor coverings at affordable price to individuals and families with limited incomes.  Trading surplus carpet and carpet tile supplies are generated to support the charitable work done by the business.  Uplifted carpet tiles from office block refurbishments are processed by Spruce – they provide an uplift service to the construction companies to bring them back and repurpose them, they are cleaned and graded and then the sales team are responsible for their sale to customers.

The company supports approximately 70 volunteers annually, offering support for accreditation in their training.  In terms of tonnages, it diverts on average 100t of floor coverings per annum.   Any materials that cannot be reused are sent for recycling.

Spruce Carpets are fully accredited holders of REVOLVE (Scotland’s national re-use quality standard sponsored by Zero Waste Scotland).   They won the Circular Economy Award at the Scottish Environment Business Awards in 2018.

The company closed at the beginning of the lockdown to protect its employees and customers and is now up and running again albeit on the restricted hours of 9.00am- 2.30pm Monday – Friday. Our services are much the same as pre-lockdown and we are continuing to uplift donations from our generous commercial supporters.

Read about the value given to employees by Spruce Carpets:

A new member of Carpet Recycling UK in 2019, Hamilton Waste and Recycling, past winner of MRW best recycling site UK, is now a reliable outlet for all waste types but specialise in the traditionally most difficult streams such as mattresses and carpets, and other flooring such as laminate, LVT and wood.

For a long while Scotland had no recycling outlet that could handle this waste, and so many thousands of tonnes were lost to landfill.  In recent years Carpet Recycling UK members have, if they wished to segregate and divert carpet wastes, had to consider outlets further afield which of course has meant incurred transport costs.  Compaction helped to bring down the costs associated but the carbon footprint of longer journeys would still have been a factor when considering best practice.

“With a current capacity for 20,000t per year for processing carpet waste, Hamilton Waste has a projection of 60,000t annually over the next three years.  The SRF (solid recovered fuel) and carpet facility is built on the back of an already established and successful waste and recycling business which handles and processes many 100,000s of tonnes annually, mainly mixed construction waste.   We fully recover and recycle any wood or scrap content, both ferrous and non-ferrous. ” says Ken Chrystal, Site Manager.

“Like most businesses, we have endured a particularly challenging year so far, however we remain optimistic about seeing a return to a more normal way of life by the end of 2020.   Demand from waste producers, and especially those generating carpet waste remains high and we’re delighted to be able a cost effective and sustainable service to our customers, more and more of whom are showing genuine commitment to ensuring their waste carpet is recycled responsibly, which is hugely encouraging. 

Our dedicated SRF operation has proven so successful since its commissioning almost a year ago, that we’re currently expanding our facility to increase efficiency and capacity.    

We continue to guarantee 100% diversion from landfill as well as full traceability of all materials post processing, the majority of which is used locally In East Lothian as a direct replacement for fossil fuels for the cement industry.

The team at CRUK has provided Hamilton Waste with much assistance since we started and have been fundamental in helping us to establish our wide customer base.  We’re pleased to work be working so closely with CRUK”

Hamilton Waste and Recycling welcomes enquires of any nature including both sorted and unsorted.  We also have a dedicated mattress recycling facility with capacity for 100,000 units annually. 

You can also contact Carpet Recycling UK for information on the most relevant outlets for your carpet wastes.