Temporary Flooring, Long-Term Impact
Tradeshow flooring is one of the largest and most frequently discarded materials on the show floor. From carpet and padding to vinyl, laminates, and printed graphics, many flooring solutions are designed for short-term use despite requiring significant resources to manufacture, transport, install, and remove. After a single event, large volumes of material often end up in landfills due to damage, adhesive contamination, custom sizing, or limited recycling infrastructure at convention venues.
As sustainability becomes a greater priority across the events industry, exhibitors and exhibit partners are reevaluating how flooring choices contribute to overall waste. Reusable systems, modular flooring, recyclable materials, and longer lifecycle planning are helping brands reduce environmental impact while maintaining a polished attendee experience. Thoughtful flooring strategies can also support broader sustainability goals by reducing shipping weight, minimizing replacement frequency, and extending the usable life of exhibit assets across multiple events.
Brumark’s Sustainable Materials Management Program
We are excited to partner with Brumark, a leading tradeshow and event flooring provider specializing in custom carpet, printed flooring, raised flooring, vinyl solutions, and sustainable flooring products for exhibits and experiential environments nationwide, on more sustainable options for our clients.
Brumark’s sustainability program focuses on addressing one of the tradeshow industry’s biggest environmental challenges: flooring waste. Through its Sustainable Materials Management Program and Recovery Program, the company is working to divert large volumes of carpet, vinyl, turf, and padding from landfills by creating systems for reuse, recycling, and energy recovery.
Because tradeshow flooring materials are often difficult to recycle back into new flooring products, Brumark has partnered with energy and recycling organizations to find alternative end uses for these materials. Carpet, turf, rubber, and urethane padding can be processed into alternative fuel that replaces coal in cement kilns, while leftover ash is incorporated into cement manufacturing, supporting a more circular process. Additional programs recycle rebond padding into new padding products and convert sheet vinyl materials into landscape products.
The program is designed to make participation accessible for exhibitors, show organizers, and partners of varying sizes. Companies can ship separated materials to Brumark collection facilities in Las Vegas and Dalton, utilize sustainability support for larger events, or engage in expanded onsite recovery services for more complex projects and mixed material streams.
A major emphasis of the initiative is education and responsible handling. Brumark provides detailed loading and separation guidelines to help preserve the recycling value of materials after move out. Flooring materials must be rolled, bundled, separated by type, and kept free of debris or contamination to ensure they can successfully enter recovery and recycling channels instead of being discarded.
Together, these programs reflect a broader shift within the events industry toward more sustainable exhibit practices. By prioritizing recovery infrastructure, material diversion, and long-term lifecycle planning, Brumark is helping exhibitors rethink what happens to flooring after the show floor closes while demonstrating that sustainability and large scale event execution can work hand in hand.
Real Results
Through Q1 2026, Brumark and Exploring Graphics have diverted more than 1,200 tons of flooring and graphics materials from landfills across 460+ tradeshows and events. Their recovery efforts have supported reuse, recycling, and alternative fuel conversion programs for carpet, turf, vinyl, padding, and SEG graphics, helping reduce environmental impact at scale while advancing more sustainable event practices.
During Earth Month alone, the program diverted approximately 430,000 square feet of material from landfills, equal to roughly 110 tons of recovered material across 60 shows in April. That impact represents the equivalent of more than 20 large dumpsters redirected away from landfill disposal through organized recovery and recycling efforts!
Brumark’s latest educational campaign also introduces “Ester,” a digital spokesperson designed to help attendees better understand carpet recyclability. Inspired by the word polyester, Ester highlights the advantages of single polymer carpet systems, which are significantly easier to recycle than traditional multi layered or “lasagna style” carpets that contain fused materials requiring more complex processing. The initiative aims to make sustainability education more approachable while encouraging smarter material choices across the tradeshow industry.
Brumark’s sustainability efforts continue to gain industry recognition, including a recent collaboration with EXHIBITORLIVE and Fern on a recyclable carpet initiative designed to improve material recovery after events. The program reflects the growing industry focus on scalable recycling solutions and more sustainable flooring practices across the tradeshow environment.
The goal of Brumark Total Flooring Solutions is to recover 100 percent of the flooring it sells after reuse and ensure all of it is directed to the next best producer of recycled materials. Additionally, the company aims to develop and launch a fully recycled product of its own, created from the original material it recovers.
Brandie Townsend, Brumark’s Sustainability Manager, said, “There is no such thing as trash; rather, it is material that has yet to reach the appropriate hands for reuse, recycling, or reinvention. Landfilling is an outdated process, and the recovery and transfer of energy from one product to the next best use is essential to sustaining this planet. In fact, if examined closely, even what we consider ‘away’ contains valuable resources that are diamonds in the dump!”
Better Booths Begin with Better Material Choices
From custom environments to rental exhibits and portable solutions, sustainable exhibit design goes far beyond the structure itself. Flooring, graphics, materials, logistics, and reusability all play a role in reducing waste and improving long term exhibit performance. Condit helps brands create thoughtful tradeshow experiences that balance creativity, functionality, and sustainability, with solutions tailored to your goals, timeline, and program needs. Contact us today to learn more or start a project online!