Winder Carpets, an established domestic and commercial flooring supplier based in Bradford, became members of Carpet Recycling UK back in 2012. We upped our game at the time with recycling although as a company we have been reusing/up-cycling carpet to a certain extent for decades making the likes of footstools/draught excluders and exchanging offcuts for new felt underlay way back in the 70`s!

Today our recycling operation is headed up by our very own Mr Robert Smith. Rob had been involved on the fitting side for some years working with one of our teams of fitters so knew what was required when bringing waste material back to the store for recycling by myself at that time.

It is quite an operation to make sure as much offcut material is extracted from the bagged-up waste the fitters bring back from the jobs daily and requires cooperation on both sides as Rob knows only too well and not put into the skip!

Our carpet waste is separated into two streams for collection by different outlets.

The new carpet and felt underlay off-cuts are palletised to a depth of approx. 1m on standard pallets, banded tight and are exchanged for new felt underlay when the delivery arrives from our supplier (usually monthly).

Old carpet that cannot be recycled goes into the enclosed skip and is dispatched via our skip provider to be processed for use in cement kilns (SRF/RDF). I`m assured by our skip provider that over 90% of our skip content goes to this.

All uplifted good clean P.U. underlay and new offcuts of same are bagged in builders type bags provided by our supplier Ball & Young and are collected by them free of charge for recycling when delivering our new stock.

Added to this Rob separates cardboard packaging / tubes and polythene which in turn are taken and exchanged by weight for credit which is used against our skip costs.
All uplifted old doorplates and new metal offcuts are collected and weighed in at a local scrap merchant.

Finally, we have a separate wheeled container (Back to the Floor) for commercial vinyl offcuts which are taken away FOC by the manufacturer.

The moral of the story is “RECYCLE AND UPCYCLE WHERE POSSIBLE” – It benefits our company and ultimately, our environment.

Finally – Rob does a tremendous job recycling apart from his other tasks within WINDER CARPETS and is a worthy recipient of his award.

                                                                                 Tony Winder – Winder Carpets