Recycled Glass Terrazzo Dazzles In Today’s Green Buildings

Low operating costs, healthier indoor environments, enhanced durability, and low maintenance costs are all hallmarks of today’s green building projects. Often facility managers are tasked with selecting flooring materials that are appealing, easy to maintain, and will last for years. When we speak to facility managers and architects, they ask us what are some design options that will help them meet their LEED-project goals. One option we suggest is having them select a recycled glass terrazzo system for their green building projects.

Recycled Glass Terrazzo Emerging Use in Today’s Green Construction

Epoxy terrazzo fits the bill for many building projects seeking a cost-effective flooring system. When specifying terrazzo floors, recycled glass just happens to attract architects in terms of its overall appearance and contribution to LEED certification.

Over the centuries, marble chips are linked to terrazzo floors. That is because, during the 15th century, Venetian construction workers would reuse scrap materials to build inexpensive flooring in their living quarters. Fast forward to today and most installations are epoxy terrazzo based. As epoxies were introduced around the 1970s, this allowed for greater flexibility when planning a terrazzo floor design.

Recently, using recycled glass as the main component of a terrazzo floor is more common in today’s era of green construction building. When combined with epoxy resins that contain zero VOCs, a recycled glass terrazzo system is nonhazardous, odor-free, non-flammable, and non-carcinogenic. In recent years, OSHA announced that silica dust has adverse effects on the health of construction workers. However, using glass chips over marble chips, not only has a positive impact on the building you are designing but also on the health of the onsite workers installing the terrazzo floor. That is because glass dust is classified as amorphous silica, which poses no health risks compared to crystalline silica found in marble dust. Crystalline silica may lead to silicosis and other respiratory diseases.

Designing an Epoxy Terrazzo Floor with Recycled Glass

All of the glass aggregates that Concord Terrazzo Company crushes come from post-industrial and post-industrial sources. There’s a variety of recycled glass options to consider for your terrazzo floor designs including mirror glass, plate glass, and colorful glass selections such as cobalt blue glass, brown-amber glass, and green glass.

Here are available glass options and what architects should know about each option:

Clear Glass

Clear glass chips blend in nicely with any epoxy resin color. This gives the floor a clean consistent color finish.

Mirror Glass

Mirror glass is favored by architects when specifying epoxy terrazzo. The glass chip reflects well off the floor and gives the floor a nice shiny appearance.

Various Glass Colors

Colorful glass chips provide a vibrant color that you won’t find in marble chips.

How Recycled Glass Terrazzo Benefits Architects and Building Owners

Glass chips offer unique appearances in a terrazzo floor design. In addition to its appearance, we collaborate with architects to select budget-friendly materials. In doing so, we suggest which glass chips will contribute to U.S. Green Building Council certified LEED points. LEED points are awarded when architects select glass aggregates that have been recycled, sourced to a project within 500 miles, or used with a zero VOC resin for indoor air emitting materials.

Concord Terrazzo Company recommends the use of glass chips in epoxy terrazzo installations. Once installed a recycled glass terrazzo system is designed to last the lifetime of a building. It is a 40+ year floor that offers building owners great investment in return. When reviewing the maintenance costs of terrazzo vs alternative flooring systems, terrazzo makes sense to use in today’s green building projects. The lifecycle costs along with unlimited customization options are simply unbeatable.

Epoxy terrazzo offers solutions for architects looking to reduce waste, lower maintenance costs, and improve material efficiency. Poured in place epoxy terrazzo floors are performed at the construction site and can be poured over a number of substrates besides concrete including existing wood and tile floors. This eliminates waste and reduces the labor and energy needed to demolish a floor to put in a new terrazzo floor. Overall, this can help general contractors and architects save on project costs and reduce project timelines.

Take a look at some installations that include recycled glass in combination with our TERRAZZCO EZPour Epoxy 158 system.