Fireclay 100% Recycled CRT Tiles
Cathode Ray Tube, or CRT, is the fancy name of those older tubes used in computer monitors and television sets. Largely replaced now by flatscreen panels, these outdated tubes are clogging up landfills around the world. Fireclay, a leading tile company based in California, has created a beautiful new tile made completely from glass reclaimed from these old CRTs. The result? A win-win for green homeowners: stunning tiles made from 100% recycled glass. Better yet, they're handmade right here in the U.S.
Recycled Glass Tile: From Kickstarter to Reality
It started with an idea: Make beautiful, functional glass tile from 100% recycled glass from old discarded CRTs. From there, Fireclay started a crowd-funded Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds necessary to bring these tiles to a real, marketable product. The Kickstarter campaign was fully funded, allowing Fireclay to move forward with this new tile line. The money raised is being used to create 360 new molds to form the recycled glass tiles.
The E-Waste Dilemma
Discarded electronics, e-waste, is a major problem. Newer, updated versions of electronic products are introduced constantly, making their older counterparts obsolete. Many are simply thrown away, even though they contain many materials that can be recycled and reused.
Discarded CRT displays make up over 860 million pounds of e-waste in the United States alone, filling landfills with toxic and hazardous materials.
Fireclay: Dipping Into the E-Waste Stream
Fireclay has created a way to divert some of that CRT glass out of the e-waste stream, and repurposing it in to their new tiles.
Working closely with a local electronics recycling firm, ECS Refining, Fireclay is rescuing this CRT glass, then handcrafting it into brand new tiles that can be used in kitchens, bathrooms....wherever tile is needed.
The Fireclay Recycled Tile Manufacturing Process
The electronics recycling firm delivers cleaned, recycled CRT glass to the Fireclay plant. There, it's crushed into fine particles. Colored pigment is added to this crushed material, then placed into the tile molds. After firing at high temperatures, the finished product is a beautiful new tile.
With this new process, Fireclay is able to reclaim 15.5 pounds of glass from every discarded CRT (on average) and repurpose it into 4 square feet of new tile product. That's an enormous amount of perfectly good, usable glass kept out of landfills.
Fireclay Phosphor: The Original CRT Tile Color
The CRT Recycled glass tile is a brand new product. It will be available intially in a unique, natural "CRT" color that Fireclay is calling, appropriately enough, Phosphor. The tiles will be available in 2" x 8", 2"x 4" and penny-round mosaic sizes.
By closing the recycling loop on CRTs, Fireclay is showing the world that using recycled, reclaimed materials from the e-waste stream makes good sense from a business standpoint as well as from a 'saving the planet' perspective.
To learn more, visit the official Fireclay CRT Glass Tiles page.
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