by aleida, on December 4th, 2009
Once on the Greenbuild expo floor, Kevin and I gravitated towards the booth occupied by the Mexican company Alumillenium. This was a very cool new find for us. Months ago I wrote about our preference for recycled aluminum tile (found here), so it was fun to meet and spend some time with Javier, a designer with Alumillenium, and Pedro Hernández, the company’s CEO.
Pedro established the company in 1996. At the time, he was working for his father at the latter’s electrical transformer factory. Pedro soon became aware that the process of manufacturing these electrical transformers generated a lot of scrap aluminum. In an attempt to figure out what to do with all that waste, and with no background in metallurgy whatsoever, he started experimenting and soon arrived at a tile-making process that was able to use all the scraps. When he found a market for those tiles, he went out on his own, buying the raw material from his father’s factory. With a hearty laugh he shared the fact that he no longer buys the waste aluminum from that factory as his father now charges too much for that scrap.
Images courtesy of Alumillenium Tile web site
In the 12 plus years since that beginning, Alumillenium has expanded its product offerings to include hand-crafted tiles, inserts, runners, and borders made out of 100% recycled aluminum. The scrap metal is currently sourced from recyclers of soda cans as well as factories whose drills, lathes, or other machining processes generate waste in the form of small shavings. Additionally, they have added a line of hand-crafted brass tiles, inserts, and borders that incorporate 98% recycled brass and 2% recycled zinc. This particular line of products is expected to earn SCS certification for 100% recycled content later on this year.
The products can be used both as flooring or wall covering elements. In fact, their Greenbuild booth showcased a sumptuous brass tile floor. Some of their custom designs allow for the metal to act as a vessel that incorporates other materials, such as glass tiles (which, if sourced properly, can themselves be made out of 100% recycled material). Other custom designs include wrought “ironwork” that is actually made from aluminum, so it is actually much lighter. And at any point, Alumillenium can take back any of their used products and make brand new tiles out of it.
Despite how stunning their product lines are, we do have to keep in mind that it all comes from Mexico. Their factory is located almost at the heart of the country, so if what you want is to earn LEED credits for – or even just simple recognition of – the use of a locally sourced material, you may not get far, unless it’s a project in the southern tip of Texas.
Nevertheless, check out their product line. It is beautiful!
This is very innovative, very impressive.
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for your comment and kind words.
Hello,
Interesting, I`ll quote it on my site later.
Thank you
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Thanks, we appreciate that.
Hello people,
I am CEO of alumillenium tile and I am please to anounce that we allready got our GREEN CERTIFICATION,congratulations to us….