Manufacturing Cork Flooring

When buying any product, one should always consider how it is made. This is for several reasons.

First and foremost, with all of the horror stories about lead painted toys, poison dog food, or rotten baby milk, coming from the world's largest manufacturing nation, China, one should be wary. That is not to say that one should fear every purchase they make, rather one should simply be a more attentive shopper. By doing so, a person is more likely to promote the well-being of themselves and their families.

Cork flooring is manufactured from cork, a natural product. Cork made from is the bark of cork oak tree with a honeycomb structure of 60 - 100 million air cells per cubic inch.

Second, with the negative affects of climate change continually increasing their influence on the health of the planet and its inhabitants, becoming an eco-consumer has never been more important. Although many look to cars as the culprit when it comes to the source of CO2 emissions flooding the air, they only equate for about 25% of CO2 output. Other considerations such as where people get their food from and what they eat, or how the products they buy are manufactured are just as essential to take into account, if not more so.

So, how is cork flooring made?

The cork in cork flooring, comes from cork trees which typically grow in the Western Mediterranean. Due to standards of acquiring cork in most countries, the cork tree has to be at least 25 years old before its cork is obtained for industrial purposes.

This ensures that the tree survives the extraction of a few layers of its bark (leaving other layers still in place so it is not defenseless to the elements). Conversely, trees young and old are wantonly razed to serve as hardwood flooring materials. The tools employed to remove the cork are simple and handheld to increase worker sensitivity to the affect they are having on the tree, discouraging waste and error. The harvest is carried out in the summer months when the tree is least vulnerable to weather.

Once the cork is obtained, it is left out in the open for up to 6 months where exposure to sun, wind, rain, and the like elicit chemical reactions inside the cork molecules strengthening the material.

After the cork is weathered, it is then boiled, cleaned, and stripped of its rough outer surfaces. The purpose of this process is to transform the cork into a material whose applications are broadly usable.

The next step is to ground the cork with a resin that binds the material together (which is non-toxic). Then the cork is shaped into large uniform sections and placed into a specialized oven.

Baking the cork, as with the weathering procedure, fortifies the material making it more suitable for flooring purposes. After all the heating is finished, the cork is separated into planks and tiles to be employed as floor coverings. With the dimensions cut, the cork is finished with either a polyurethane or waxing solution to protect its structural integrity and maintain its aesthetic. This coating does not alter the look of the cork (other than perhaps making it shiner).

The variance in shades and colors of the cork flooring is a function of type diversity of granules ground up and bound together as well as how long it has been heated. The longer the cork is heated, the darker it becomes, and the less it is heated the lighter it is. The cork material can be painted or stained prior to the polyurethane covering if a particular look or style is the goal.

Cork flooring can be refinished and re-waxed many times, however sanding can only be done on a few occasions. This allows you to either keep your floor as is or change up its allure as you see fit.

Either way, the production of cork flooring wastes virtually NO cork, and does not require myriad intensive chemical processes which pollute and poison the earth. Plus, any cork left over from the manufacturing process is recycled to be used as bottle stoppers and wine corks.