Bedford Academy has chosen eco-friendly flooring for its new-build school extension, opting for Altro Cantata adhesive-free and using the Recofloor vinyl take-back scheme on a project where sustainability considerations were a top priority.
The new two-storey extension at Bedford Academy was a £12m project for Bedford Borough Council in 2025. This extra capacity has made the school one of the largest secondary schools in the borough.
The extension features Altro Cantata adhesive-free throughout the main areas and Altro Aquarius in the bathrooms and shower spaces. These floors are designed for durability, low maintenance, and sustainability, making them an ideal fit for a high-traffic educational setting.
Keen to minimise waste and carbon during construction and beyond, main contractor Ashe Construction asked Altro for sustainable flooring ideas for the build. This led both to a change in product specification and to implementing post-installation waste collections through Recofloor, the commercial vinyl take-back recycling service. In total, 0.85 tonnes of vinyl offcuts were collected for recycling. Recycling this quantity gives an estimated carbon saving of 1 tonne compared to manufacturing new materials.
Both Ashe Construction and Bedford Borough Council have ambitious zero carbon targets, with every detail of a project counting. When Altro recommended Recofloor to Ashe Construction, the team recognised immediately that deployment made perfect sense. “The combination of Recofloor with Altro’s Cantata adhesive-free vinyl is a great solution,” says Ashe Construction project manager, Danny Roberts. “The product itself is lower carbon and designed to be recyclable, maximising resource recovery. And because it’s easy to lift, recycling the vinyl through Recofloor will be simple and straightforward when the time comes for replacement.”
The flooring contractor was Equinox Flooring, fitting 1,280m2 adhesive-free Altro Cantata in the 16 classrooms plus 280m2 Altro Aquarius in four changing rooms. For this project, Recofloor bins were deployed on site at Bedford Academy. Once the project started, fitters were able to dispose of the growing amount of offcut waste as they went along, without filling up site skips. Recofloor bins are collected and delivered mainly by vehicles already making flooring delivery runs, keeping the carbon footprint of collections low.
Collaboration between manufacturers and construction teams is essential in driving sustainability forward, so Altro’s Sustainability Champions visited the site partway through the build, meeting with the Ashe Construction team on site, allowing them to gain valuable insights into the sustainable building techniques being used to create Net Zero Carbon in Operation.
Energy efficiency is a key focus for the academy’s new extension. The building’s façade will maintain stringent U-values to minimise heat loss, while MVHR units installed in ceiling voids will regulate airflow and temperature. In colder months, heat from the air source heat pumps will be recovered to warm incoming air, and in summer, a night purge system will help release excess heat, keeping classrooms cool and comfortable.
Recofloor is the UK’s leading commercial vinyl collection and recycling service. It’s eco-friendly and cost-effective, with material collected being recycled for use in new products, including flooring.
Altro Cantata is a modernist adhesive-free floor for maximum impact with minimum downtime. Enhanced cleanability makes it ideal for busy public spaces where disruption needs to be minimal and it has no associated adhesive odours. It features Altro’s award-winning adhesive-free installation method for same day weld and walk, easy end of life removal, re-use or recycling.
Altro Aquarius is a specialist solution for combined wet and dry, shoe and barefoot areas. This safety flooring keeps you safe with common contaminants such as shampoo and conditioner, and is comfortable underfoot and resistant to wear and tear from shoes.
Find out more about adhesive-free flooring and sustainable solutions from Altro: www.altro.com/uk/explore-altro/learn-and-engage/altro-guides/adhesive-free-floors
Find out more about the Recfloor vinyl takeback scheme: www.recofloor.org
