From the Sector

• The Borvida™ portfolio introduces sustainable base chemicals to Borealis’ range of product offering
• The range will initially be based on non-food waste biomass, and chemically-recycled waste; in the future it will also draw from atmospheric carbon capture
• The traceability of the content will be based on Mass Balance, which is ISCC PLUS certified
• This is the next step in an ambitious sustainability journey, which will see Borealis move away from traditional fossil-based feed

Borealis is strengthening its EverMinds™ circular product offering with Borvida™, a range of sustainable base chemicals.

The Borvida portfolio will offer base chemicals or cracker products (such as ethylene, propylene, butene and phenol) with ISCC Plus-certified sustainable content from Borealis sites in Finland, Sweden and Belgium. The move is part of Borealis’ broader commitment to a Future-Positive Revolution, in which the unrivalled benefits of base chemicals and polymers can be enjoyed at minimal impact to the planet.   

The portfolio will initially comprise Borvida B, from non-food waste biomass, and Borvida C, from chemically-recycled waste. In the future, the range will evolve to include Borvida A, sourced from atmospheric carbon capture. Borvida is complementary and is the building block to Bornewables™, a portfolio of polyolefins based on renewably-sourced second generation feedstocks, and Borcycle™, which offers circular polyolefins produced from mechanically- and chemically-recycled plastic waste.

Borealis produces a wide range of base chemicals for use in numerous industries based on various feedstock, such as naphtha, butane, propane and ethane. Through its olefin units (steam cracker and propane dehydrogenation), it converts these into the building blocks of the chemical industry: ethylene, propylene and C4 hydrocarbons (butylenes, ethyl tertiary-butyl ether (ETBE) and butadiene), and C5-6 hydrocarbons (pygas, phenol) among others.

The basis of the Borvida portfolio is Mass Balance, a Chain of Custody model that enables sustainable content to be tracked, traced, and verified through the entire value chain, offering sustainability-assured products from feedstock to end product. Using this model, circular alternatives can be offered in a cost-effective and environmentally-conscious way, which can be scaled up quickly without compromising on quality or efficiency.

Borvida can be used for a wide range of different polymer and chemical applications, also beyond polyolefins (PO). Non-PO polymers, such as polycarbonates, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), super absorbant polymer (SAP) and other chemicals, are utilised for various end applications including coatings, plasticizers, adhesives, automotive, electronics, lubricants, detergents, appliances and sports equipment.

Together with key strategic partners, including Neste and Covestro, Borealis strives to provide a long-term solution in order to allow value-chain partners to meet their sustainability goals. Borvida will enable our customers to increase the sustainability of their products, keeping them ahead of forthcoming legislative changes, and meeting their customers’ demands for climate-conscious products.

Introduced on a smaller scale in early 2020, early renewable base chemicals customers include Covestro. “The use of alternative sustainable raw materials is one important pillar of our strategic ambition to become fully circular”, comments Frank Dörner, Managing Director Covestro Procurement Services GmbH & Co. KG. “The new product line is a good example for joint solutions, another strategic pillar, in order to establish new and reliable supply chains creating benefits for our customers.”

Europe has a 7-7.5-million-ton waste problem, of which only 30-35% is collected today. The ReHubs initiative launched in 2020 has now completed a Techno Economic Master Study (TES) and it sheds light on key figures and options to collaborate to solve the European waste problem.

In two and a half year all EU member states are obliged to separately collect textile waste. Currently there are no large-scaled plans to use that waste.  The largest portion of the waste (around 85%) comes from households.

The ReHubs initiative brings together key European and world players to solve the textile waste problem by transforming “waste” into a resource and to boost textile circular business models at large scale. The completed TES has accessed critical information on solving the European waste problem. It is estimated that to reach a collection rate from 18 to 26 percent by 2030, 7 billion euro will be needed. Once matured and scaled, the textile recycling industry could become a profitable industry with a total market size of 6-8 billion € and around 15,000 direct new jobs by 2030. As a first step the ReHubs Initiative announces different actions forwards, including projects on this pathway, which one is to transform textile waste into feedstock.

TEXAID has been supporting ReHubs since the start and contributed significantly involved to the Business Council and the Steering Committee of the initiative. As strongly committed industry leader TEXAID is taking the lead on the project to transform textile waste into feedstock for recycling processes. In order to handle the increasing quantities of post-consumer textile waste a massive scale up of sorting and preparation for recycling of used textiles is needed. TEXAID is committed to lead the work on developing new technologies and building up additional capacities for the handling and preparing of textile waste for textile recycling in Europe. In a first phase this involves the built up of a new sorting and pre-processing facility with the capacity of 50’00 tons p.a. by 2024.

The ReHubs initiative brings together key European and world players to solve the European textile waste problem by transforming “waste” into a resource, and to boost textile circular business model at large scale.

This collaboration is set to turn the societal textile waste issue into a business opportunity and to fulfil the EU ambitions of the Green Deal, of the mandatory texile waste collection by end 2024 and the transition into Circular Economy.

In 2020 EURATEX launched the ReHubs initiative to promote collaboration across the extended textile value chain and considering all perspectives on chemicals, fibers making, textiles making, garments production, retail and distribution, textiles waste collection, sorting and recycling.

In June 2022 ReHubs completes a Techno Economic master Study (TES) which researches critical information on the feedstock (textile waste) data, on technology, organizational and financial needs to recycle 2.5 million tons of textile waste by 2030 and to effectively launch the ReHubs.

EURATEX’s ReHubs initiative plans to pursue fiber-to-fiber recycling for 2.5 million tons of textile waste by 2030
According ReHubs Techno Economic Master Study (TES), the textile recycling industry could generate in Europe around 15,000 direct new jobs by 2030, and increase need for nearshoring and reshoring of textile manufacturing.

The textile recycling industry in Europe could reach economic, social and environmental benefits for €3.5 billion to €4.5 billion by 2030
“Transform Waste into Feedstock” announced as first project supported by the ReHubs, and aiming at building up a first 50,000 tons capacity facility by 2024.

Europe has a 7-7.5 million tons textile waste problem, of which only 30-35% is collected today.  

Based on the ambitious European Waste law, all EU Member States must separately collect the textile waste in 2 years and half. While some countries are designing schemes to face the waste collection challenge, currently no large-scale plan exist to process the waste.

The largest source of textile waste (85%) comes from private households and approximately 99% of the textile waste was made using virgin fibers.

Euratex  assesses that to reach a fiber-to-fiber recycling rate of around 18 to 26 percent by 2030, a capital expenditure investment in the range of 6 billion € to 7 billion € will be needed, particularly to scale up sufficient sorting and processing infrastructure. The economic, social, and environmental value which could be realized, potentially total an annual impact of €3.5-4.5 billion by 2030.

Once matured and scaled, the textile recycling industry could become a profitable industry with a total market size of 6-8 billion € and around 15,000 direct new jobs by 2030.

Next steps of the ReHubs initiative

• A European textile recycling roadmap proposing Objectives and Key Results to recycle fiber-to-fiber 2.5 million of textile waste by 2030
• A leading collaboration hub with large players and SMEs from across an extended European textile recycling value chain
• A first concrete portfolio of 4 launching projects:
  - Transform textile waste into feedstock
  - Increase the adoption of mechanically recycled fibers in the value chain
  - Expand capacity by solving technical challenges for thermo-mechanical textiles recycling
  - Create capsule collection with post-consumer recycled products

The 1^st project addresses current sorting technologies which have limits to identify materials with sufficient accuracy for the subsequent circular recycling processes. The “Transform Waste into Feedstock” project will focus on further developing and scaling such sorting technologies. The project group led by Texaid AG aims on building up a first 50,000 tons facility by the end 2024.

As of 30 May 2022, EREMA Group GmbH acquired 19.8 percent of plasticpreneur® gmbh. plasticpreneur® is an Austrian start-up company founded two years ago that manufactures at its production site in Klagenfurt recycling solutions for plastic waste that are mobile and can be operated without prior knowledge. The machine portfolio covers the recycling process and the production of new end-products. Due to it´s wide range of applications, it is in demand both in the Global South and in industrialised countries.

In the two years since the company was founded, plasticpreneur® has already sold 330 machines to customers in over 70 countries on all continents. In addition, they have made over 750 application-specific moulds, many of them custom-built to comply with individual customer specifications.

While plastics recycling has gained enormous momentum in the industrialised countries, more remote and poorer regions of the world have hardly benefited from high-tech solutions for industrial recycling processes so far. They are held back by a lack of infrastructure and know-how. That is why waste is often incinerated or disposed of in landfills, rivers and the surrounding environment. "Our mission - Another life for plastic, because we care - is also aimed at supporting these regions with solutions for plastic recycling, and with plasticpreneur® we have found the ideal partner for this," says Manfred Hackl, CEO EREMA Group.

The start-up company's machines can process HDPE, PP, PS, LDPE, PLA, AB and TPU separately. Their product range includes a shredder, injection moulding unit, extruder unit for the production of end products, air filters as well as custom-built moulds. "For our machines to be used in regions with little infrastructure, they must be easy to operate without prior knowledge. The fact that we also develop end-product solutions needed locally makes our range of services particularly attractive here," explains Sören Lex, CEO and co-founder of plasticpreneur®. As soon as recycling also becomes a source of income for the operators, they become entrepreneurs. That explains the name of the start-up, a word created from "plastic" and "entrepreneur". plasticpreneur® customers in these countries include e.g. social enterprises and operators of refugee camps, where everyday consumer goods - from clothes pegs and school supplies to toys and fence posts - are produced and sold using plastic waste. This means that the added value stays local.

The demand for plasticpreneur® machines is also increasing in industrialised countries. On the one hand by educational institutions and organisations that use them to raise awareness of the need for a circular economy in workshops and to give pupils as well as adults a better understanding of plastic recycling. On the other hand by customers who are developing new end-products for plastic waste together with plasticpreneur®. Because the machines are so easy to operate they enable a low-theshold use of recycled plastics in product development processes, starting from generating prototypes to launchin small series production. Small companies, product designers and developers therefore are another steadily growing customer segment.

Freudenberg Performance Materials (Freudenberg) is endorsing further sustainable products with its ECO-CHECK label introduced last year. These products comply with various environmental criteria. With immediate effect, five more solutions bear the label making the company’s commitment to sustainability visible.

Leather goods
The newly-endorsed ECO-CHECK products include one Evolon® microfilament textile application. This is a reinforcement material for leather goods that is manufactured with no solvent and no binder. It contains up to 80 percent recycled PET and is suitable for a broad range of applications. The material is produced at Freudenberg’s facility in Colmar, France, where the manufacturing process is highly sustainable: it is certified to STeP by OEKO-TEX® and fully complies with the DETOX TO ZERO by OEKO-TEX® criteria.

Healthcare applications
In the field of healthcare, the bio-based M 1714 wound pad with superior absorption for more challenging wounds has now been endorsed with the ECO-CHECK label. The dressing consists of a mix of bio-based fibers derived from natural sources and exhibits a smooth wound contact layer. The product has been evaluated for industrial compostability and conforms to ISO 13432.

Architectural applications
The sustainable TF 400 Eco F mesh fabric for textile architecture from Mehler Texnologies® now also bears the ECO-CHECK label. Its yarn is made of 100% recycled PET bottles and its characteristics are very similar to those of conventional mesh fabrics. In 2021, it was awarded first place by the Architectural Membrane Association (AMA) in the “product” category in recognition of its properties.

Shoes
In the shoe industry, the binder-free strobel insoles have been endorsed as particularly sustainable. They contain a high percentage of recycled green bottle flakes. Moreover, the insoles themselves are fully recyclable.

Filtration applications
The two layered, needle-punched nonwoven filter medium that has just been endorsed with the ECO-CHECK label has impressive sustainability characteristics. Made entirely of polyester, more than half the fibers consist of recycled material.

• Target markets: automotive, furnishings, sports and technical apparel
• New product entry: radipeople® line of personal protective equipment

RadiciGroup is at Techtextil 2022, the leading European trade fair for technical textiles, taking place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 21 to 24 June. On display in the RadiciGroup exhibition area are the Group’s latest products for the automotive, furnishings and apparel markets: from nylon and polyester yarn, including biosource and recycled lines, to nonwovens and the new radipeople® line of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Indeed, at Techtextil, RadiciGroup is showcasing RENYCLE®, a yarn obtained from recycled nylon; REPETABLE®, a polyester yarn from post-consumer recycled plastic bottles; RESPUNSIBLE®, a nonwoven fabric from recycled polypropylene; and BIOFEEL®, a brand identifying a yarn line obtained from renewable sources of both nylon and polyester.

Moreover, RadiciGroup is participating in a forum organized by the Technical Textiles Section of Sistema Moda Italia in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ICE) (Hall 12.1 – Stand C58), with the goal of introducing product innovations not only coming from a single manufacturer, but also from an innovative synergistic approach all along the supply chain, from raw materials to finished products. An example of this synergistic collaboration is the “Mars Spacesuit”, recently tested in the USA by analogue astronauts as part of a space medicine project designed to measure the vital signs of future astronauts and develop technologies to support the simulation of life in space and planetary environments. RadiciGroup teamed up with major Italian textile companies and supplied the materials to make the suits for the six analogue astronauts participating in the mission and coordinated the development of the technologies needed to create the technicalwear for use in extreme environmental conditions.

TEXAID as a professional collector and sorter with roots in Switzerland contributes to this ecosystem to enable the textile-to-textile recycling.  The creation of Swiss Textile Recycling Ecosystem marks a key milestone in the upscaling of Worn Again Technologies’ recycling process technology with technology scale-up partner Sulzer Chemtech in Winterthur. It also supports its ambition to create a circular economy where non-reusable, hard-to-recycle textiles can be reintroduced into supply chains to become new fibers.

To cause a paradigm shift in the fashion industry and realize true circularity requires all members of the value chain to be on the same page and working towards the same goals. The Swiss Textile Recycling Ecosystem is a network comprising fabric and textile manufacturers, waste collectors and sorters, as well as retailers, brand owners and technology providers – all coordinated by Swiss Textiles. All these parties will cooperate to make their shared vision of a more sustainable fashion industry a reality, where used textiles can be recycled into new textiles.

TEXAID as a stakeholder in the Swiss Textile Recycling Ecosystem and as leading textile recycling company with over 40 years of experience will support the initiative through collecting, sorting, pre-processing and providing pre- and post-consumer feedstock to the Demonstration Plant. At its headquarters in Schattdorf (CH), TEXAID will investigate possibilities to automate the sorting and pre-processing of textile feedstock for recycling. Currently, TEXAID processes more than 80,000 tons of end-of-use textiles and footwear every year all over Europe and the US.

• Lenzing continues to focus on partnering for systemic change

• Clear commitment to improving the environmental footprint of textile and nonwoven industries

• Global initiative TfS promotes sustainable design of global supply chains

The Lenzing Group, a world-leading provider of wood-based specialty fibers for the global textile and nonwoven industries, has joined the chemical industry’s sustainable supply chain initiative, Together for Sustainability (TfS). Together with Lenzing, numerous internationally active chemical companies have joined the initiative. Their common goal is to make the global supply chains of the chemical industry sustainable.

“Joining the TfS initiative is another clear commitment to improving the environmental footprint of the global textile and nonwoven industries and proves that sustainability is taken very seriously at Lenzing – so much so that sustainability is at the heart of our business strategy. So much so, it sits at the core of the Group’s business strategy. The industry needs innovation in order to transition from linear to circular ways of working, and Lenzing will continue to partner across the supply chain to bring this vision to life,” says Robert van de Kerkhof, Chief Commercial Officer Fiber at Lenzing.

Partnering for systemic change
Complex global sustainability challenges require a collaborative approach to developing systemic solutions, involving many stakeholder groups. In order to make the global textile and nonwovens industries more sustainable and bring about systemic change, Lenzing has therefore also been building on partnerships within its sustainability strategy “Naturally Positive” for many years.

“I am very proud to welcome Lenzing to the TfS family, bringing the TfS membership to 37 companies. Together and with our strategic partners we continue to expand our reach and increase our impact on the sustainability performance in chemical supply chains. Given the regulatory landscape, climate challenges and market conditions, the need for sustainable businesses only intensifies. TfS is the crucial enabler to make supply chains and businesses at large more sustainable and contribute to developing a better world”, says TfS President Bertrand Conquéret.

The global TfS initiative follows the principles of the UN Global Compact and Responsible Care.

Bemberg™ is teaming up with MagnoLab, a network of Biella-based companies apt to carry out projects related to sustainability and circular economy, to create and display T-shirts that combine environmental responsibility and aesthetic research at the 102nd edition of Pitti Uomo.

Bemberg™ is used in shirts, cocktail dresses, dust coats, coordinates, outerwear and more by international brands operating in the fashion and luxury industries. To demonstrate its journey and evolution in contemporary style, Bemberg™ has collaborated with MagnoLab to develop a project that resulted in contemporary cut I-shirts presented both in sheer and blends with other certified fibers, including GOTS cottons and RWS wools, capable of enhancing both the hand of the final garment and the performance of the yarn.

The project conceived for Pitti Uomo 102 stems from the spirit of Bemberg™ and fits perfectly into the philosophy of MagnoLab, whose mission is to carry out projects related to environmental responsibility through a joint and participatory approach of partners, and to create value by developing innovative products and processes with rapid testing cycles, according to a lean management model.

Thermore launches its new product EVOdown®, made of 100% recycled fibers from PET bottles. Thermore EVOdown® bridges the gap between free fibers and traditional padding, delivering the ultra-soft hand and drape of blow-in fibers in a rolled form.

EVOdown® consists of millions of free fibers encapsulated by two containing outer layers. It is light-weighted and has a silky touch.

EVOdown® is another step towards sustainability for the Milan-based company, which has now converted over 97% of its turnover into insulations made of either fully or partially recycled fibers (based on actual sales figures). This brings Thermore closer to an exclusively sustainable product offer. Sustainability has always been part of Thermore’s DNA, as the Group pioneered the use of recycled fibers in the early 80s and mastered it thereafter.