The Challenge:
As a result of continuing growth, Nike decided to lease a 105,000-square-foot, three-story office building near its corporate campus in Beaverton, Oregon. The building was only five years old, but as Jim Petsche, Director of Corporate Facilities, notes, “The interior was originally designed for use by a computer company, which just didn’t work for us.”
Consequently, the company decided to renovate the building in order to create an interior that had the same look and feel as those of other facilities on the Nike campus.
The Solution:
As part of the project, square lay-in ceiling tiles were replaced with new tegular tiles. However, instead of dumping the discarded tiles in local landfills, Nike decided to recycle them as part of the Armstrong Ceilings Recycling Program.
The program, which was the first of its kind in the industry, enables building owners to ship old ceiling tiles from renovation projects to an Armstrong plant as an alternative to landfill disposal. The discarded tiles from Nike were shipped to the Armstrong plant in St. Helens, Oregon, which is the destination point for all ceiling tiles collected on the west coast.
Since it introduced the program in 1999, Armstrong has recycled more than 50,000,000 square feet, or nearly 17,500 tons, of discarded ceiling tiles.
According to Petsche, Nike recycles as much construction waste as possible, including drywall, metal, wood and concrete. “Environmental consciousness guides all aspects of our business, including facilities. We’ve recycled ceiling tiles before,” he adds, “but never to this extent.”
Even though this ceiling recycling project was much larger than previous ones, Petsche reports there were no problems. “The process worked painlessly, and we’ll recycle ceilings again, especially since it fits so well with our commitment to implement green design and environmentally friendly practices whenever possible.”