Can exhibition flooring be reused and recycled?
Yes, both are possible, but exhibition floor coverings differ markedly in this respect. Disposable exhibition carpet is discarded after only a few days of use. Of the carpet flooring that enters the waste stream across Europe each year, less than three per cent is sent for material recovery. The rest goes to landfill or is incinerated. Take-back schemes now exist for certain certified exhibition carpets, provided they are clean, dry and free from foreign matter.
Exhibition flooring made from PU-bound rubber granules follows a different route that begins with the raw material. The ELT rubber granules are produced by recycling end-of-life tyres. The rubber tiles are loose-laid and can be lifted without tools after the exhibition, then cleaned, stacked and stored. The shape and precise fit of the puzzle connection are retained over many installations, allowing the same tiles to form a continuous surface at different exhibition stands. As a result, the tiles do not become waste when the stand is dismantled.
At the end of their service life, worn tiles can be shredded for material recovery as secondary rubber granules where regional collection routes exist. Otherwise, energy recovery remains available.