Recently, Elaine Yee attended an event hosted by Interface. The purpose of the event? To share information about their partnership with Net-Works – an organization who works with developing countries to harvest discarded fishing nets. The concept is win-win: it provides assistance in beach/ocean clean up but has also resurrected the economy of the coastal villages and former fishing communities in the Philippines whose main industry has become the reclamation of discarded fishing line (made of recyclable nylon).

The recovered fishing line is then recycled and Interface – working with partners – uses it to create high quality, commercial grade carpet tiles like those pictured. The program is so successful, that it is branching out to other countries, such as Cameroon.

As a sign of Chmiel Architects on-going commitment to sustainable design, they are specifying carpet using recycled nylon as a general rule. In fact, all of the carpet specified for the Alterna Head Office Project is made of 100% recycled nylon, including that which is sourced from the Net-Works program.