3M Canada Company and Mannington Commercial will partner to reclaim and recycle 200,000 square feet of the graphics on vehicles and key venues in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games into commercial flooring.

"We learned about Mannington's precedent for recycling mixed waste similar to our graphic materials into flooring," says Richard Chartrand, Vice President, Display and Graphics business, 3M Canada. "Most

recycling facilities would quickly turn away from the colorful, irregular shaped lumps that the graphics result in after use, but Mannington was up for the challenge."

Mannington will recycle the graphics into Premium Tile, a product popular in commercial healthcare, education and retail applications. The Premium Tile product already contains post-consumer waste streams

including drywall and VCT reclaimed from renovation sites, and is certified as an Environmentally Preferable Product, meeting rigorous certification requirements.

"One of the simplest ways to conserve resources is to reuse what you can. We've found second lives for many flooring products and were intrigued by the opportunity presented by 3M Canada," says Dave Kitts, Mannington Vice President - Environment.

3M considers this recycling program a significant step in the right direction for creating a positive environmental shift in our industry. "As we have innovated to grow our recycling capabilities, we have been looking for waste streams to increase the amount of post-consumer content that we can use in our products,” says John Emmons, Director of Commercial Manufacturing at Mannington. “The arrangement was not only a great way to support this 3M Canada initiative; it also made very good business sense."