Happy April 22nd, AKA Earth Day!
This year many organizations and individuals are celebrating Earth Week, because of how important our home planet is to us! Find ways to create a more sustainable life in all things, including your home.
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Happy April 22nd, AKA Earth Day!
This year many organizations and individuals are celebrating Earth Week, because of how important our home planet is to us! Find ways to create a more sustainable life in all things, including your home.
Topics: Stone, Quartz, Marble, Limestone, Porcelain Countertop, Porcelain, Stone slab, ceramic tile, natural stone
This day brings a stronger awareness of the daily materials we use here on Earth and how we can take added responsibility to help keep our planet healthy. Earth Day first started on April 22, 1970, it now features a wide variety of events organized globally by EARTHDAY.ORG with more than 1 billion people in over 193 countries. A large part of this holiday is to self evaluate how our personal actions affect our environment, and what steps we can take to help to minimize our impact.
Here at GENROSE we want to help our customers discover new ways to be more environmentally friendly, and one way is through Ceramic and Porcelain tile. Ceramic tile is made from local, naturally occurring materials, energy-efficient, available with recycled content, and is reusable as clean fill. Also, the longevity of ceramic tile means that it has less of an environmental impact than other surface materials that must be replaced more frequently. When properly installed and maintained, ceramic tile has an expected “lifespan” of 50 years. Reducing resources, time, and money spent on extracting raw material, manufacturing, transportation, installation, demolition and disposal requirements.
Another benefit of ceramic tile is the process used that recycles raw material and waste water back into the production cycle. Even scraps are often ground up for use for paving bricks and road filler. The air quality in your home is also benefiting with ceramic tile, because it does not absorb or emit any pollutants. Maintaining your ceramic surfaces is incredibly easy and does not require anything harsh or high in solvents to get it clean, all you need is a simple warm water and soap mixture to make your tiled surfaces look just like new.
Porcelain tile is made using plentiful, natural materials such as clay, feldspar and quartz. The majority of porcelain tile manufacturers are using innovative designs and a commitment to environmental sustainability to produce trendsetting tiles in a zero-waste manufacturing process.
Natural Stone is another great option to bring sustainability into interior design. The production of natural stone is very simple - extraction, cutting, and polishing, no chemicals needed. Compare that to other building materials, like concrete natural stone produces a significantly less amount of carbon into the air. Concrete uses cement as an ingredient to make it's mixture. According to treehugger.com a ton of cement consumes 1,360 gallons of water. Natural stone is also low maintenance, easy to clean, and lasts in a space for decades.
Florida Tile is a manufacturer and distributor of porcelain and ceramic wall tile, as well as natural stone and decorative glass and metal tiles that we sell at GENROSE. They are Green Squared Certified® and pride themselves on practicing a variety of sustainability measures.
When choosing tile and installation materials, you can look for the Green Squared Certified® mark to ensure your choices have been certified as sustainable products. Green Squared is the North American tile industry’s sustainability standard and certification program that establishes multiple-attribute criteria throughout the entire life cycle of products involved in tile installation. The program requires a consistent sustainability assessment of varying product types, giving consumers single sustainability evidence to look for.
This standard is based upon American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A138.1: Green Squared – American National Standard Specifications for Sustainable Ceramic Tiles, Glass Tiles, and Tile Installation Materials.
ANSI A138.1 includes a host of criteria common to green building products to address the fact that no single environmentally friendly attribute can make a product sustainable. As such, the standard encompasses all of the following elements:
Today, and everyday we can practice more energy conscious habits that will benefit not only our lives but the lives of others, animals, and our home planet. These are just a few ways to include a home renovation or build into a sustainable lifestyle, without having to sacrifice style and function.
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