Ceiling Tile Recycling
It's always a challenge to walk the line between the necessary rehabilitation of buildings and dedication to environmental stewardship by minimizing the amount of solid waste produced.
Armstrong, the company that produces ceiling tiles, has launched a program to help large facilities like ours maintain their "green" vision during the rehabilitation and remodeling process. The Armstrong Ceiling Recycling Program enables facilities to remove, stack and ship old ceiling tiles to an Armstrong recycling and re-manufacturing plants located around the country. Stony Brook began participating in this program in 2008, beginning with buildings such as Life Sciences and Engineering. To date, we have diverted 21,686 square feet of ceiling tiles for recycling. This equates to approximately 15,180 pounds, or 7.59 tons, of solid waste kept out of the waste stream and therefore, out of our landfills. There are numerous benefits to recycling our old ceiling tiles. Not only do we save money by not having to pay for the disposal of the tiles, there are countless environmental benefits, as well: the tiles are kept out of the landfills, natural resources are preserved, and we are able to reduce the University's carbon footprint as well as Armstrong's carbon footprint.