I thought that you might like to be introduced to a product that looks like slate but is made of recycled materials.  We are currently installing this product on a beautiful church roof and a historic building in downtown Lancaster.  The product is made of up to 80% recycled post-industrial rubber and plastic.  It is extremely environmentally friendly. 

I think that the installed product looks just like the original slate roof must have looked.  The procedure for installing the product is very similar to installing slate.  Growing up in the roofing business, I was involved in many slate roof installations.  Starting with cleaning up the mess from the old roof, then getting the new slates up to the roof, and later on installing the slate roofing and flashing.

Advantages

• Less weight than real slate.  The weight for this recycled product is less than half of what a slate roof weighs.
• Environmentally friendly
• Comes in a variety of colors
• Can get a manufacturers 50 year limited material warranty
• Costs slightly less than real slate
• Less breakage

Disadvantages

• The first synthetic slate tiles have only been around since 1996 (Original slate roofs have been around for centuries)
• Limited number of manufacturers
• Takes about the same amount of time to install as slate