Eco advance for laminate recycling
Thanks to revolutionary innovation, Quick-Step is the world’s first company that can fully recycle HDF into new material. with patented technology that makes it possible to detach wood fibres from existing HDF and reuse them.
Quick-Step has been committed to producing laminate and other flooring as sustainably as possible for decades. An important aspect of this is keeping wood in circulation for as long as possible. The HDF – High Density Fibreboard, which forms the core of Quick-Step laminate flooring – not only consists of 100% recovered wood, but the new technology now also makes it possible to recycle HDF.
So, what’s the difference between recovered and recycled HDF? Until now, Quick-Step has only used recovered wood in its HDF production. This wood, which comes from road maintenance, sawmills, and sustainable forestry, would otherwise be incinerated. Instead, Quick-Step reuses it. As a result, no CO2 is released into the atmosphere through incineration, and no new trees need to be felled.
In addition, Quick-Step has spent years looking for ways to go even further and give the HDF a second life. Following extensive research and development, Unilin Group – Quick-Step’s parent company – has become the world’s first manufacturer to finally achieve that objective thanks to its patented recycling technology.
For a long time, it was impossible to recycle HDF because the glue that binds the wood fibres could not be ‘filtered’ in an industrial process. Consequently, most of the fibreboards ended up in the incinerator at the end of their service life. This innovative new technology allows the HDF fibres to be moistened and loosened so that they can be reused.
