Video Recap:

Eighty percent of floor pad content is fiber, typically polyester. For the past seven years, Americo has used 100% polyester in their floor pads, hand pads, and scrubbing sponges. All of their polyester comes from recycled water bottles and soda bottles, the highest polyester grade made.

The bottles are cleaned, disinfected, and ground up into flake. The flake is heated and extruded out into new fiber. It takes 38 water or soda bottles to make one case of 20" floor pads. The Americo process prevents bottles from going back into landfills. Also, no phenol-formaldehyde is used in their binding process, which is entirely water-based. Today many contractors and clients ask if a company is green. Americo has worked with a U. of Georgia professor to look into proper disposal of floor pads. They have found that incinerating the pads may create enough BTU's to be reused as energy, although the method for doing so must still be developed.