Czech company Brens, which produces rail tracks, tram and railway lines, has turned to production processes using recycled materials.

In May 2019, the Belgium-based fruit and vegetable cutting business Allgro set up its own water plant. The facility turns wastewater into drinking water, thereby slashing the food company’s mains water consumption.

Veolia and Knauf have established a partnership to collect, process and transform waste glass into mineral wool for use as an insultating material.

ALBA Group is a major company active in recycling, environmental services and the supply of raw materials. It has come up with a method for producing plastic using secondary raw materials.

Upcycling is a straightforward way to reuse items which would otherwise be considered waste. Lucirmás has found a way to upcycle bottles.

In cooperation with VA Syd, the City of Malmö has established a pilot project in which kitchen waste disposers have been installed as an easy-to-manage method of dealing with food waste.

Each of the companies in the Envien Group produces a biofuel component, with waste used for specific purposes, such as manufacturing pelleted animal feed or as a co-substrate for biogas production.

Entocycle upcycles local food waste to feed black soldier fly larvae, which grow very fast and become protein-rich animal feed.

UK-based Chip[s] Board have developed a range of innovative, circular materials from potato waste.

The Italian company Mapei has come up with a product which brings leftover cement in mixer trucks back into the production cycle.

Estonian start-up 3cular has designed a pioneering way of reusing this sawdust to produce new objects with 3D printing. The desired object is designed using 3D modelling software and then a 3D printer is used to produce the object in layers. The printing ink is a combination of sawdust and a non-toxic binder making it possible to print wooden objects faster and easier preserving the environment.

Based in the Danish capital Copenhagen, Veras operates several initiatives to reduce waste in the fashion sector by making it easy for everyone to swap and sell clothes. Veras is primarily an online webshop shipping to all Europe, where users can send in their own clothes. It also hosts weekly clothing markets for everyone to buy and sell clothing and has a flagship store in Copenhagen.

Vanden’s plastic recycling plant transforms plastic waste into commodities, ready to be manufactured into something useful again.

Italian startup Vaia has developed a passive loudspeaker for smartphones by using - as raw material - exclusively wood brought down by storm Vaia that badly hit the Dolomite mountains in Northern Italy in 2018.

Trifilon Revo uses an existing, consistent source of plastic from a European stream and reinforces it with hemp fibers, thus improving the impact properties of the recycled plastics, which can be used to produce a range of colours and surface finishes, matte or polished.

Billy Tannery is a micro-tannery helping to create value by reusing goatskins that would otherwise go to waste, to make leather products.

The Shellworks designers’ collective recycles seafood shells to make bioplastic, in order to reduce plastic use and waste.

Ocean Cleanup has launched design sunglasses made from plastic removed from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

In 2017 JRK Waste management introduced an intelligent data system (ECONIT) to reduce the high quantities of mixed municipal waste in Czechia. The programme asks residents to scan their rubbish with QR codes. Information on the quantity and types of waste produced is then used by the local waste management agencies to improve collection and recycling rates.

The company Teemill produces t-shirts from organic cotton. They are designed to be sent back to the company when they are worn out.

Splosh sells its range of products – from detergents and fabric softeners to shower gel and hand wash – in bottles that can be refilled from their concentrated refill pouches. Buying refills in these pouches cuts plastic waste by 95%.

Since 2010, Philips has been working on introducing recycled plastics into its product portfolio. The baseplate of Senseo Original coffee makers, the company’s most popular model, has been changed to 95% post-consumer recycled plastic.

SECONTRADE is the first and largest European online market for secondary raw materials, launched in Austria in 2018. It digitalises waste management and enables the trade of recycled materials across Europe.

Oryzite is a method for incorporating rice husks as a filler in all types of thermoplastics. The company transforms the rice husks into resin, which can then be used to obtain the same volume of injection-moulded plastic using much fewer fossil-fuel-based polymers.

Complementing traditional mechanical recycling efforts, Plastic Energy has developed a patented Thermal Anaerobic Conversion (TAC) technology to convert end-of-life plastic waste into a new feedstock, called TACOIL, that can be used in the manufacturing of virgin-quality plastics suitable for food-grade packaging.

ReBlend develops textiles and textile products made from textiles that otherwise end up in incineration. Textiles made from recycled fibres offer a positive alternative for designers and companies. In collaboration with waste collectors, producers, designers, makers and visionaries, ReBlend organises a full supply chain from start to finish to accelerate a new ecosystem for circular textiles.