Florim USA Nets Tennessee Green Award
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Florim USA recently won a statewide environmental honor for its use of recycled materials.
The Clarksville company is one of nine 2022 recipients of the 2022 Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award, given annually for successful environmental projects and conservation measures.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) Commissioner David Salyers announced the winners earlier this summer, and Florim representatives received the honor for Sustainable Performance during ceremonies in late July.
Nearly 15 million pounds of post-consumer glass has been used to make Florim tiles in Clarksville since 2019 with 5.6 million pounds in 2021. A second post-consumer glass supplier was identified in 2021, allowing the facility to nearly double the amount of glass deliveries.
As part of the recycled-glass delivery, Florim reuses the one-ton-capacity polypropylene industrial supersacks received in delivery of other aggregate products. To date, Florim has repurposed approximately 9,500 supersacks to its recycled-glass provider, keeping 41,000 pounds of waste out of the landfill and saving approximately $56,000, after which the used supersacks are sent off for final recycling.
In 2021 Florim also recycled into its process more than 11 million pounds of internal scrap, representing 99% of scrap produced. Unfired material is introduced to the process “as is” without further processing, while the fired material is crushed to a size small enough for the milling process to manage.
Florim also re-uses all of the water used to produce material before it’s fired. A series of trenches and sumps captures the water, which is sent to the beginning of the process and used in the ballmills where raw materials are wet-ground to a fine slurry. Florim captured and reused more than 19 million gallons of water without any industrial wastewater discharge to the local sewer system in 2021.
The use of these materials in conjunction with the recycled glass and water allows Florim USA to declare a recycled content more than 45%, including a post-consumer recycled content of more than 3% for much of the product line in 2021.
“Florim USA’s core principals are product innovation, quality, design, and ecological mindfulness,” said Don Haynes, company environmental and sustainability manager. “We feel as if it’s our duty and responsibility to be mindful of our impact to the environment both now and for times to come. It is a privilege and honor to be recognized, and to receive this prestigious award from the Governor and TDEC.” A panel of nine professionals representing agriculture, conservation, forestry, environment, and academic professions judged more than 60 nominations and selected this year’s award recipients based on criteria including on-the-ground environmental achievement, innovation, transferability, partnerships, and public education.
