I was recently a speaker at Coverings, the annual tile and stone trade show in Orlando, Florida. As a green interior designer, I've been asked to speak at several shows around the country about ways to design interiors with sustainable, healthy materials. Finding 'green' or sustainable products is somewhat easier now than it used to be even 5 years ago, but it's still confusing to many people. I mention ways to save energy, water, and promote good indoor air quality, and there's still a lot of questions about what exactly makes a particular product 'green'.

The real answer is that there is no exact answer. Green products mean different things to different people. And not all products are completely 'green'...for example, you may find a beautiful glass tile that you've been told is made from recycled material, and is supposedly 'green', but how much of it is actually made from recycled glass? And if it's made in China - who's factoring in all the fuel burned, and carbon expelled to get to the USA? So there's a ton of things to consider, all of which is very confusing, and makes some people want to throw up their hands and just buy the first thing they see that fits the bill. Being constantly vigilant about sustainable products is pretty exhausting to the average person. One of the important points I try to get across to people is that it is very frustrating and confusing, and trying to create a 'perfectly green' room or home just isn't easily attainable. Trying to be as green a you can within the confines of your budget and style is really commendable.

I've always been concerned about the tons and tons of waste generated during the demolition process of a home renovation, and the fact that it languishes in landfills for eternity. I've been on a constant search to find products that can be recycled once their usefulness is over, and it hasn't been easy. Until now,  post-consumer tile has been considered non-recyclable. While many tile manufacturers have successfully reused scrap powders and unfired tile, hundreds of millions of pounds of damaged or otherwise unsellable fired tile (tile in its finished state), have gone to landfills each year. Additionally, there has been no environmentally friendly manner to dispose of previously installed tile- until now. I was recently informed about Crossville, a nationally known manufacturer of beautiful ceramic and porcelain tile located in Tennessee, that has several really innovative and amazing programs in place that handle the problem of pre and post consumer waste beautifully and efficiently.

With its Tile Take-Back Program, Crossville®, the tile industry’s leader in sustainable initiatives, has solved the major environmental problem facing the tile industry today: recycling fired tile. Crossville has developed a proprietary system of processing ceramic and porcelain tile back into powder used in manufacturing new tile. The resulting new products have a verifiable recycled content, and more than 4 million pounds of tile that Crossville would have previously sent to local landfills has been recycled to date. Not only does the process allow Crossville to repurpose its own scrap tile, but it allows the company to take back samples and previously installed tile, always a concern for environmentally-minded designers and building owners.

Crossville made history with the first cradle-to-cradle installation project in Chicago’s 43-story Federal Building. They harvested all 200,000+ pounds of porcelain tile and sanitary ware from the building and recycled it to create 65,000 sq. ft. of porcelain tile to install back into the project.

Toilets into Tile: Crossville received thousands of pounds of unusable, fired porcelain fixtures from TOTO, and transforms them into beautiful, responsibly made tile products. 

It's companies like Crossville that give me hope that 'green' design isn't just for a select few, and that we are beginning to realize the value of using our resources wisely and well. And beautifully too!

A colleague of mine recently sent me this picture he snapped on a neighborhood street in suburban Chicago. It speaks volumes about the building practices of the past few decades, and I for one am hoping that this particular scenario is becoming a thing of the past.

It's been over a ten years since we all 'got religion' reading Sarah Susanka's book " The Not So Big House" and started seriously addressing the consequences of large, excessive building practices. With that, the over-extension of mortgage money created a virtual house of cards for not only the building industry but the nation's economy as a whole. We are now at a crossroads in this country and hopefully seeing not only the 'light of day' financially, but a virtual 'light of day' that has taught us that conservation and thoughtful, sustainable building practices may actually get our economy back on its feet.

I think this picture is worth a thousand words, so I'm sparing you my usual diatribe about sustainability, and let you just view this sad little house that was once (and still is) a well designed family home. It's my wish that homes like this will continue to be a symbol of the American dream.