Orange Fiber has closed the loop for oranges by patenting a technique to squeeze orange peel and citrus waste into cellulose fibre. With growing demand for sustainable fashion, the company is well placed to commence production in 2019, having already prototyped a collection with Salvatore Ferragamo and won the Global Change Awars
The Pura Production Group is clearly commited to sustainable production. Pura's flagship Blue Right line for hotels and offices is a circular economy front runner: the floor, interior, sanitary and kitchen cleaners are produced without hazardous chemicals, sold in portion-controlled compostable packaging and lead to zero waste after use.
Elak is a family-run electronics store in Brussels which has adopted a circular approach to its e-commerce activities from the onset.
Kierratyskeskus is a growing chain of seven big box re-use stores, selling all possible furniture, household items and craft supplies in the Helsinki area.
Shiro Alga Carta paper, patented by Favini in the ’90s, is the pioneer in their upcycling ecological paper range. It uses algae from the Venice lagoon, whose proliferation would put at risk the lagoon’s fragile ecosystem.
Remake is the most recent addition to Favini's upcycling ecological paper range, using as much as 25% of pulp material from discarded residue of the leather manufacturing process. This revolutionary process has won the European Paper Recycling Awards
Crush, launched in 2012, is the second product in Favini's upcycling ecological paper range. Its production uses the equivalent of 15% of virgin pulp paper in by-products from food industry.
WIPAG recycles post-industrial and post-consumer plastic waste from several industries with its main focus on automotive parts. Both composite separation and de-coating process allow for end products with excellent performances.
The Fairphone 3, launched in 2019, is one of the first modular smartphones, with components designed for longer use first and refurbishment when they finally break down.
Van Hulley is a Dutch SME that upcycles worn-out shirts into boxershorts, employing disadvantaged women as seamstresses every year and training them to join the labour market more permanently.
Infinited Fiber has developed a process technology that can turn cotton rich textile waste into new fibers for the textile industry. Not just once, but infinitely. Infinited Fiber can be recycled again and again without decreasing the quality of the fiber.
8 millions of cigarette stubs are generated each minute in the world, and 66% of them currently end up in the environment, where they take up to 15 years to decompose. In addition, chemical components in cigarette filters generate residual pollution.
MéGO! offers a pragmatic answer with a service for collecting, sorting and recycling cigarette stubs.
Renewcell's technology dissolves used cotton and other natural fibres into a new, biodegradable raw material: renewcell pulp. It can be turned into textile fibre, be fed into the textile production cycle and meet industry specifications. This is the link that has been missing from the cycle, and will enable the way fashion is produced and consumed to be transformed into a never-ending loop.
Zippers and buttons make garment recycling complicated as the removal of such details calls for manual assistance, making the process both costly and time consuming. Resortecs® solves this problem by supplying a thread that simply dissolves at a high temperature.
The ECOALF foundation has embarked upon its most ambitious project to date: Upcycling the Oceans, an unprecedented worldwide adventure that is helping to remove up to 200 tonnes of waste from the bottom of the oceans thanks to the support of over 3000 fishermen.
Bracenet collects discarded fishing nets, sends these to Norway to have them turned into fabric and then produces unique wristbands in workshops that provide employment opportunities to disabled persons.
Klättermusen is a Swedish outdoor clothing company producing waterproof jackets, pants and backpacks made at least partly from recycled polyamide. The polyamide is created from post-industrial waste including packaging materials from factories, old carpets as well as discarded industrial fishing nets.
ECOALF is a Spanish fashion company with a sustainable profile. ECOALF makes swimwear from 100 % recycled fabrics made from PET and recycled polyester.
Andrea Verdura uses different eco-friendly materials to craft stylish, comfortable footwear for women, men and kids. One of the materials used in the footwear are recycled fishing nets.
Raubersachen (robbers' loot in German) applies the concept of product-as-a-service to baby clothes, providing parents with a ecological woollen alternatives by refurbishing disposed baby and toddler clothes and renting these out, thus reducing the amount of cheap, low-quality products being bought and keeping baby clothes in circulation far longer.
Taking advantage of the eternal recyclability of Gypsum, Saint-Gobain's gypsum subsidiary already launched a voluntary and ambitious policy in 2000 to encourage the recycling of pre- and post-consumer gypsum waste.
Glass wool is infinitely and completely recyclable. Regardless of the glass wool’s quality, age, density or other properties, the material is entirely recyclable and can be re-melted as many times as necessary, before entering into the composition of new insulating products, without having its final quality impacted.
Water2REturn is an Innovation Action co-funded by the European Commission under its Horizon 2020 (H2020) programme.