Once you have the chance to go to New York Yankees baseball team training center, Manchester United football stadium runway, or is Miami Heat forward LeBron James (LeBron James) home in a private basketball court or playground when traveling, do not forget to look at the bow.
Because the ground beneath your feet is likely to be rubber from recycled materials - that is decommissioned Nike (Nike) shoes rubber sole - laying formed. This material called "
Nike Grind", in fact, as early as 20 years ago, Nike started "Reuse A Shoe" project has been born. Since the year of 1990 so far, the company has more than 2,800 ten thousand shoes and other waste can be converted into 36,000 tons of this material. Today, the world has as many as 450,000 sites uses this material.
In the realization of all this process, a technology company has achieved no small credit that ECORE International (ECORE International), which is allegedly the largest North American scrap tires (including of course the previously mentioned sneakers waste) consumption providers.
ECORE use from Nike partners such waste collected to produce commercial floor mats Material: handle 300,000 pounds per year from Nike rubber material (equivalent to 700,000 sports shoes soles), and convert them into a sports ground mats, called Everlast.
"It is this range of products is the foundation of our transformation." ECORE Dodge, CEO of Art (Art Dodge) said. The company is headquartered in Pennsylvania Lancaster (Lancaster, PA).
ECORE not what little eco-conscious, busy catching up the trend of recycling start-ups. In fact, this family business back in 1869 on the establishment, by the great-grandfather founded by current CEO, the initial production of Heinz ketchup (Heinz Ketchup) and use that cork stoppers. To the mid-1980s, the company began to reinvent itself, and recycled rubber products, just as the background fit. Today, it operates more than one million square feet of manufacturing space.
"We're really trying to grasp all the world's tire rubber." Dodge said. (In the company, a 36-inch tires can produce 20 square feet of rubber flooring.)
This does not sound so simple: Rubber is to not be destroyed and design. But the company soon found that this durability used in laying on the ground just right. In fact, ECORE around this problem developed production technology than this one, but also includes Itrsu system - a different floor layers fused together to create a low-emission standards to meet the VOC (volatile organic compound) materials; also there is the vertical integration of its subsidiary RTI system for the separation of rubber and metal, as well as new material becomes pre-cleaning step. (Separated from the metal were sold can be used for other purposes of the company.)
"We really sees itself as a closed loop provider," Dodge said. Until April 2011, ECORE been recovered from existing customers where their products - these materials are again processed and used for other possible new uses.
In addition to the purposes stated above, ECORE's products are also used in new tires, trails, rubber modified asphalt and ground landscape purposes. It also made mats for shock absorption, for example, in hospitals and other places used to reduce patient falls or falling objects when the impact.
Right now, ECORE are studying how to collaborate with sports turf suppliers to help solve people's problems head trauma is increasing concern.
November 1, the company announced the hiring worked in the flooring giant Armstrong World (Armstrong World) Los Ruidao Lin (Lori Dowling), of which he was a new department "ECORE business floor" of the president. The department will focus on promoting ECORE five brands in the field of sales, they are: Everlast (Nike shoes made by the waste flooring materials), ECO98 (carpet tiles), ECOsurfaces (another recycled carpet products), QT Sound Quality (silencer mats) and Polyflor (vinyl flooring).
Of course, ECORE not the only one I hope to get rich by rubber recycling company. This is a major industry: even according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US Environmental Protection Agency) data a decade ago, in the U.S. alone, discarded tires annually to reach 290 million. Today, 80% of which can be recycled: At that time, only 8% of the inflow of the various types of products such as ECORE of recycling products.
In this area, I am concerned about other companies include: Lehigh Technologies, focusing on rubber modified asphalt; Liberty Tire Recycling, recycling of waste tires per year (about 130 million) accounted for one third of total U.S. waste tires; and US Rubber Recycling, ECORE is trying to become a direct competitor.
