Posts tagged "lino"

How can I reuse or recycle carpet/flooring samples?

We’ve had an email from Katy:

I work in a carpet store and we regularly get rid of big books of carpet and lino samples.My floor manager just throws them in the bin skip. Can they be recycled?

A lot of our reuses for carpet need it to be in large pieces, not just foot-square samples but some of the reuses for vinyl flooring/lino would work with smaller pieces – mats for under pet food bowls, wipe-clean cupboard/shelf lining or a patchwork of bright colours in a children’s play area/a semi-portable playmat.

Both can be recycled apparently too.

Any other suggestions?

How can I reuse or recycle vinyl flooring/lino?

Vinyl FlooringWe’ve had an email from Penny:

I have some relatively new – but damaged – strips of vinyl flooring. Can they be recycled and if so how/where?

Penny doesn’t say how big the strips are or whether they’re completely damaged or just in part – if only bits of the strips are damaged, the good bits could be used to cover a desk/work bench to make it easier to wipe clean.

They could also be used in the garden – on top of a compost heap perhaps or if you’ve got an open-bottomed compost bin like ours, underneath it in case you want to move it in the future (we have a piece of wood under ours at the moment but I suspect the flexibility of vinyl flooring would make it easier to drag if needed).

Any other ideas? Anyone know about whether it can actually be recycled?

(I added “lino” (as in Linoleum) to the subject since I suspect a lot of re-uses would apply to either.)

(Photo by Maffu)