From the Sector

Royal DSM announces that its DSM Engineering Materials business will launch mass-balanced bio-based Arnitel®, a thermoplastic elastomer, together with Sympatex Technologies. In this way, DSM Engineering Materials is taking the next step on its sustainability journey and enabling its customers to transition to a more circular and bio-based economy.

To address growing consumer and legislative demand for lower carbon footprint and more sustainable feedstock, the sports and apparel value chain is increasingly integrating bio-based materials into its designs. By offering a new range of mass-balanced bio-based Arnitel®, DSM Engineering Materials is enabling membrane manufacturer, Sympatex Technologies to meet these demands and make more sustainable choices.

DSM’s bio-based Arnitel® is manufactured with bio-based feedstock using a mass-balance approach¹. The end product contains more than 25% bio-based content by weight.

Sympatex uses Arnitel® to manufacture its waterproof, windproof, and breathable membranes for sports applications. The transition to bio-based feedstock will maintain the unique functional properties of Arnitel® and will enable Sympatex to easily shift to a more sustainable solution with a lower carbon footprint without having to requalify materials.

¹ Mass balance accounting is a well-known approach that has been designed to trace the flow of materials through a complex value chain. The mass balance approach provides a set of rules for how to allocate the bio-based and/or recycled content to different products to be able to claim and market the content as ‘bio’-based or ‘recycled’-based. Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation (Mass Balance White Paper).

Rester Oy, which is developing the plant in Paimio, recycles companies' end-of-life textiles, and Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto Oy (LSJH), which will hire a production area at the same facility, processes households' end-of-life textiles. The plant will process 12,000 tonnes of end-of-life textiles every year, which represents about 10% of Finland’s textile waste.

The textile industry’s end-of-life textile problem is intolerable. Natural resources are increasingly used to manufacture products, but these materials are lost at the end of their life cycle. About 100 million kilograms of textile waste are generated annually in Finland alone. Reusing this material could reduce the textile industry’s carbon footprint and significantly reduce the use of natural resources.

Rester Oy and LSJH will drive the textile sector towards a circular economy and begin processing textile waste as an industrial raw material. The Nordic countries’ first industrial end-of-textile refinement plant will open in Paimio in 2021. The 3,000-square-metre plant is being developed by Rester Oy, which recycles companies' end-of-life textiles and industrial waste materials. LSJH, which processes households’ end-of-life textiles on its production line, will hire part of the plant.

Outi Luukko, Rester Oy’s board chair, says, “The processing plant will begin a new era of textile circular economy in Finland. As industry pioneers, we are launching a system change in Scandinavia. The transition of the textile industry from a linear model to a circular economy is essential, as virgin materials cannot sustain the current structure of the textile industry. And why should it, when there is so much recyclable material available?”

From the perspective of Rester Oy’s main owner, work clothing supplier Touchpoint, the circular economy plant not only represents resource efficiency, but is also necessary from the perspective of the entire life cycle of a responsible work clothing collection.

Luukko adds, “Finding a local solution to a global problem is a huge leap in the right direction and raises Finland's profile as a pioneer of circular economy."

The future plant will be able to process 12,000 tonnes of end-of-life textiles annually, which represents about 10% of Finland’s textile waste. Both production lines produce recycled fibre, which can be used for various industrial applications, including yarn and fabric, insulating materials for construction and shipping industries, acoustic panels, composites, non-woven and filter materials, and other technical textiles, such as geo-textiles.

LSJH is piloting a full-scale refinement plant

LSJH has launched a pilot production line for processing households' end-of-life textiles. Unfortunately, consumers' end-of-life textiles are heterogeneous, making them a challenging raw material for further processing. Before processing, the textiles are sorted by material into various fibre classes using optical identification technology developed by LSJH and its partners. This ensures the quality of the raw material and the resulting fibre products.

Jukka Heikkilä, managing director for Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto, explains: “On the basis of the experiences gathered from the pilot project, Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto is preparing a full-scale refinement plant in the Turku region. As soon as 2023, the plant will process Finnish households' end-of-life textiles. The project involves all waste treatment plants owned by Finnish municipalities.”

Paimio has ambitious goals for circular economy companies

Rester’s initiative aims to create a circular economy cluster in Paimio that combines the processing and reuse of end-of-life textile fibres. Paimion Kehitys Oy, which is owned by the City of Paimio and the local association of enterprises, supports the development of circular economy companies in Paimio.

Mika Ingi, managing director for Paimion Kehitys Oy, says, “We want to step out of our traditional municipal role and create significant added value for everyone taking part. That is why we are involved in the development of a new modern service model based on ecosystem thinking. We are piloting the textile cluster, followed in the coming years by clusters focusing on plastic, construction, and energy. The aim of our service is to support and help develop new profitable business by bringing circular economy companies and their potential customers to innovate together."

The foundation stone of the processing plant was laid today (18 August 2020). The processing plant will begin operations in February 2021.

The DyStar® Group recently launched a new concept of their resource saving module – Cadira Reactive/Disperse Continuous.

Cadira Reactive/Disperse Continuous is a modified pad-dry-thermosol-pad-steam dyeing process for open width PES/CO fabrics. In contrast to the standard PDTPS process, Cadira Reactive/Disperse Continuous does not require a separate reduction clearing process and thus saves more than 40% chemicals, water and energy. This effect is obtained by using a special dye choice of Dianix® XF/XF2 and SF disperse dyes in combination with selected Levafix® and Remazol® reactive dyes and a modified steaming and wash-off process with Sera® auxiliaries.

The Cadira concepts considerably reduce process costs, water, waste and energy consumption and machine utilization. Cadira supports Brands & Retailers and their production partners in their effort to save valuable resources and to reduce the carbon footprint of their textile goods.

The first Cadira module was developed in 2016. Since then DyStar has launched Cadira concepts for various substrates and applications. So far, the following Cadira concepts are available.

Cadira Polyester
Cadira Recycled Polyester
Cadira Vat
Cadira Reactive
Cadira Procion PX
Cadira Wool
Cadira Denim

DyStar will continue their effort to support the textile industry to reduce the environmental footprint.

About DyStar
DyStar® Group is a solution provider, offering customers across the globe a complete range of colorants, auxiliaries and services. The DyStar Group has offices, competence centers, agencies and production plants in over 50 countries to ensure the availability of expertise in all important markets. With a heritage of more than a century of product development and innovation for the textile and leather industry, DyStar has developed into new markets and now in addition serves the paper, plastic and many other specialty chemical industries.

DyStar’s service division assist brands & retailers and their industry partners from their first inspiration throughout the entire supply chain to ensure that they meet stringent quality and ecological specifications, reduce costs and shorten lead times. The service division offers state of the art color communication through CSI, textile and ecology testing through Texanlab, ecology and environmental advice, supply chain auditing and consulting for RSL compliant sustainable processes through Sustainable Textile Solutions programs.

The DyStar econfidence® program provides assurance that provided products comply with legal, voluntary and brand & retailer RSL (Restricted Substance List) requirements. It is an assurance that our products are in compliance with chemical and environmental legislation in each market in which they are sold.
Visit www.DyStar.com for more information.