Artistic Tile Adopts Four Green Initiatives

Secaucus, NJ, Nov. 9, 2009--Nancy Epstein, founder and principal product designer of Artistic Tile, has adopted four ‘green’ initiatives to lowering the company's carbon footprint.
 
Artistic tile said it is recycling post-production scrap material, using 100% filtered rain water in cutting tile, shipping products in recycled boxes, and packing goods with biodegradable bubble wrap, while continuing to offer products with ‘green’ characteristics.

Epstein says, “It is my goal to be more eco-conscious and join forces with others in the tile industry to let people know that they are making responsible purchases when they select natural stone and tile for their design projects.”

The most unusual of these new initiatives is the use of rain water in the company's water filtration system, created in just six months and housed in a 110,000 square foot distribution center at the company’s headquarters in Secaucus.  The system filters 200 gallons per minute.

The company said its tile customization program uses approximately 60,000 gallons of water per day on the diamond-blade saws, which require a constant flow of water during the cutting process.

The company can get as much as 1,000 gallons from one rain storm.  The rain water is reintroduced into the custom recycling system – a series of tanks and pressurized pumps – that clean the water immediately as it is being used without the need of chemicals, chlorine, or bleaching agents. 


The pressurized pumps remove the slurry – a thin watery mud or insoluble matter – created during tile cutting and send filtered water to a holding tank.
 
Additionally, Artistic Tile is recycling all of its scrap material created from production of stone, porcelain, and ceramic products.  The post-production waste is sent to a plant in South New Jersey, where it is then ground into aggregate for concrete and used in a wide variety of construction projects, including railway beds.