Toilets are becoming more and more water efficient to the point of being waterless. (see Flowise Flush-Free Urinal by ZeroFlush) From 3.4 gpf usage down to 0.8 gpf with the Niagara Stealth Toilet, the industry is making leaps and bounds to conserve water. This is all fine and dandy, but what to do with all the reject toilets that are clogging our landfills? Fireclay Tile has an unconventional solution to recycle old toilets into ceramic tile.

Fireclay Tiles.

For the past 15 years, California based Fireclay Tile has been using recycled material in its tile products. More recently, the company has been working with local recyclers to up its supply of reclaimed waste porcelain to grind down into tile material. The Debris and Express Series tiles now have more than 70 percent recycled content, including 50 perfect post-consumer recycled content. Fireclay was able to buy 150 tons of porcelain from two sources, Recology in San Francisco and Zanker Road Resource Management in San Jose. Recycled porcelain is one of many recycled material in Fireclay’s tiles, which include waste glass, granite dust and abrasive materials.

A quote about the process of finding waste material from Fireclay’s founder and chief ceramicist Paul Burns: “For the past fifteen years my mission at Fireclay has been to maintain the beauty and high quality of our ceramic tile while offsetting local Bay Area waste materials. When I first started approaching people to see if I could purchase their waste materials they thought I was crazy, now that we have demonstrated success, those conversations have become easier.”

The Debris Series comes in 112 natural, lead-free glaze colors and a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Fireclay also designs handmade tiles with intricate patterns and details. I personally like the Sandhill Glass Tile collection which is composed of 100% recycled glass and comes in 36 colors and 19 shapes for ultimate customization and creativity.

via PlanetGreen