Partnership with NIKE, Inc. Gives Everlast Sports Surfacing a Foot Up in Fitness Flooring

Everlast Sports Surfacing has entered an exciting new sustainability partnership with NIKE, Inc. for 2009. Through this partnership, Everlast will begin incorporating Nike Grind rubber in its fitness flooring products which will be called Everlast with Nike Grind.

Everlast with Nike Grind combines raw materials made from Nike's recycled athletic shoes including out-sole rubber, mid-sole foam and various other shoe components with premium, recycled tire rubber.

"This partnership gives our customers the best of all worlds," said Brad Drexler, chief marketing officer for ECORE International, maker of Everlast products. "The opportunity to combine Everlast's products, already the top brand in fitness flooring known for its durability and large color assortment with Nike's Grind rubber, creates a surface capable of meeting the increasingly higher sustainability standards of facility managers, designers and architects."

Everlast has been the leading brand in sports surfacing for more than a decade. Its long-lasting recycled rubber floors are found in gyms, fitness centers and athletic facilities coast-to-coast. While it is best known for its durability, low life cycle costs and broad range of color options, its green side has been less understood, until now. In addition to a high recycled content, Everlast products also meet stringent indoor air-quality testing requirements for low-emitting building materials, qualifying them for use in schools and other high-performance buildings.

Initial feedback from customers has been outstanding. "Interest in this product has been incredibly strong, bolstered by the addition of Nike's Grind rubber product and the line's level of highly recycled content," said Drexler. Due to its many positive environmental attributes, Everlast products can contribute points toward the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. Based on LEED criteria, Everlast products can assist specifiers by potentially contributing towards earning up to seven LEED points.

Everlast flooring is made in the United States from recycled tire rubber and colorful EPDM flecks that contain approximately 20 percent post industrial scrap. By using Nike Grind rubber in Everlast Sports Surfacing products, nearly 500,000 pounds of by-products will find a higher value reuse than may have otherwise been possible.

As North America's largest user of scrap tire rubber, ECORE salvages more than 80 million pounds of scrap tire rubber from landfills each year, converting them into durable product solutions for commercial, industrial and architectural applications.