Our industries and our current way of life make us produce more and more in an "ephemeral" way. We throw away big amounts of raw materials that we could easily reuse and launch back in the circular economy.
Parapluiestandupcycling decided to retrieve the fabric of broken umbrellas and to create a utility garment out of it.
Europe is facing a growing mountain of used textiles. In North-West Europe 4700 kilotonnes of post-consumer textile waste are generated annually. Still, less than 1% of textiles produced are currently recycled into new ones, and around 50% are downcycled, incinerated or landfilled.
Automated sorting technologies could enable the industry to turn non-rewearable textiles into valuable feedstock for high-value recycling. Fibersort, a Near Infrared based technology, is able to categorise textiles according to their fibre composition, structure and colour.
At the end of each chapter of the report, recommendations are formulated for recyclers, manufacturers and brands to address the socio-cultural, physical and economic barriers for uptake of sorted textiles.
Thanks to its textile recycling techniques, Prato is considered one of the most advanced and innovative industrial cities in Italy.
Applications to the European Social Innovation Competition 2020 are now open! Under the theme Reimagine Fashion: Changing behaviours for sustainable fashion, the 2020 competition is looking for projects and ideas that will change the ways we produce, buy, use and recycle fashion, moving towards increased global sustainability and changing consumer behaviour at local, national and European levels.
Berlin has the potential to become the first Circular City in Germany, due to its growing variety of initiatives, grass-roots and research work in the area of circular economy (CE).
This report provides information on the development of the project Circular Berlin, which started in 2018 and is financed by the EIT, under Horizon 2020.
The project consists of 4 phases:
Customers from the MUD brand can lease or buy their jeans, benefit from a free repair service, and return the worn out items to have them recycled into new denim products - so that the iconic piece of clothing remains in use for the longuest time. This brand philosophy saves 78% water and 61% CO2-eq per jeans compared to industry standards.
The International Cradle to Cradle Congress - the world's largest platform for C2C - will take place in Berlin from 31 January to 1 February 2020.
La Tête dans les Nuages gives a second chance to hot air balloons, advertising posters and polystyrene packaging, which would otherwise go to waste, by upcycling them into bean bags.
adidas, one of Europe's premier sportswear manufacturers, is increasing the use of sustainable materials in its product range. From 2024 onwards, only recycled polyester will be used in every product and on every application where a solution exists.
In 2019, Stella McCartney partnered up with adidas to solve the problem of product waste with the introduction of two new apparel innovations.
Wao shoes are fully ecological shoes made entriely from natural, innovative and sustainable materials.
Globe Hope, a Finnish textiles and cosmetics SME, has been creating bags and accessories from recycled and leftover materials since 2003.
ChangeNOW - the world's largest gathering of solutions for the planet - returns to Paris for its 3rd edition from 30 January to 1 February 2020, with more than 1,000 solutions and several inspiring circular economy keynotes.
ISATIÓ is a Brussels SME that recovers samples from the textiles industry to create unique designer clothing, with manufacturing all done locally and the supply chain covered entirely by bicycle couriers.
The textile industry is the second most polluting industry in the world. The Next Closet’s mission is change this and inspire people to invest in quality and reuse what they already have, so second hand can become the number one choice.
Join a team of students and young professionals for a six-day bootcamp tackling sustainability challenges in textiles and fashion, presented by Dutch companies.
Circularity is a necessary solution to minimise the use of finite resources, but it requires a unified approach. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) and the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI) have launched a Policy Hub on Circular Economy to ensure collaboration among industry partners.
Together these organisations will kick-off the development of an impactful and effective policy framework. The C&A Foundation will fund the project throughout 2020.
The Hub seeks to promote and demonstrate the value of a European policy framework that accelerates circular economy in the apparel, footwear, and textile industry. The Policy Hub will collaborate with a range of initiatives and stakeholders to support the industry in closing the loop of their business practices.
Join Kyiv's European Circular Economy Forum on 4 October 2019, organised with support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
In 2017, Fixfest brought together over 200 volunteer repairers and tinkerers, activists, policy-makers, thinkers, and companies from all over the world in the name of taking greater care of the things we own – and better products.
Karün is a Swedish-Chilean company producing sunglass frames entirely from discarded fishing nets and jeans, collected in Patagonia.
The EU faces multiple challenges (climate crisis, environmental disasters, a lack of competitiveness, falling behind in the digital race, etc.) that it will need to address if it is to ensure long-term sustainable prosperity for European citizens. At the same time, there are two ongoing transitions – the creation of a circular economy and the digital transformation – that could provide the means to address these challenges, if they are managed well.
As the EU and national policymakers are making significant efforts to promote a circular economy on the one hand and a digital economy on the other, Annika Hedberg and Stefan Šipka, together with Johan Bjerkem, argue that it is time to align the agendas as a means to achieve greater sustainability and competitiveness.
This publication:
It suggests that the EU must:
This Discussion Paper builds on the findings of the EPC’s "Digital Roadmap for a Circular Economy" project of 2017-19 and paves the way for a more extensive final study, scheduled to be published in the late autumn of 2019.
The project has been supported by Aalto University and the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) (members of Helsinki EU Office), Central Denmark region, Climate-KIC, the Estonian Ministry of the Environment, Estonian Environment Investment Centre, HP, Orgalim, the province of Limburg, UL, Fondazione Cariplo and Cariplo Factory.
To help inspire conversation and policy action concerning inclusive circular business models during the next EU Commission mandate, RREUSE invited EU decision makers to a closed site visit to Les Petits Riens, a Brussels-based social enterprise with activities dating back to 1937.
Founded in 2012 with the objective of creating high-quality eyewear from oil-free or recycled materials, producing Dick Moby sunglasses and eyeglasses follows a circular approach: lowering environmental compared to similar fashion accessories.
RREUSE, the European network of social enterprises active in re-use, repair and recycling, is organising its third annual conference, in collaboration with the Spanish social enterprise network AERESS and Traperos de Emaús Navarra. This unique event will focus on strategies supporting longer-lasting products through re-use and repair that create local inclusive jobs, provide green products and services and contribute positively to well-being in our society.
The 2019 edition of the International Stewardship forum is co-organized in Paris by DASTRI and the GlobalPSC with the following objectives:
These factsheets outline circular economy opportunities to design out urban waste and pollution, ensure products and materials maintain their value, and regenerate the natural systems in our cities.
Easy-to-reference, the factsheets are a collation of research and case examples that answer some of the most prevalent questions around what circular economy can bring to cities:
The whole collection of factsheets, by system and phase, is available on the Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation website.
Lopyanko's Agri_Gaya'18 project aims at developing sustainable and circular exploitation of the bombix mori (silkworm) in Northern Bulgaria. Besides the production of organic silk and other valuable byproducts, the project establishes protective forest belts of mulberry trees, an agroforestry model particularly well-suited to the Danube Region.
Lena is the first fashion library of the Netherlands, where you can borrow clothing with a subscription, or buy through the try-before-you-buy principle. An endless wardrobe with the benefits of a fast changing wardrobe, placed in a sustainable context.
