A cream-colored fabric could represent a significant progress for the plastic wastes’ treatment in the textiles, a priority product category in Europe’s transition towards a circular economy according to the European Commission (EC)’s Circular Economy Action Plan and European Green Deal. 

On the stage of Proposte Fair, the world-renowned Italian furnishing textile exhibition which gathers over 2,700 professionals from the field, the REACT project presented its prototype: a chair coated by a recycled fabric obtained from acrylic textile waste. The displayed prototype is the tangible proof of REACT’s innovative treatment process to remove hazardous substances from the outdoor awnings and furnishing while ensuring the purity of the second-hand raw material.

 

An innovative and sustainable treatment process

The REACT consortium partners brought together different expertise to search for an ecological and economical way to transform the acrylic textile waste, allowing a virtuous circular economy development in the vertical sector.

Firstly, Parà (Italy), industry leader in textiles, collected and categorized the sources of waste within its production. Secondly, the research and testing centers of CENTROCOT (Italy) and Ghent University (Belgium), in collaboration with the University of Bergamo, fine-tuned the treatment systems to identify the different finishing and remove the hazardous chemicals from the gathered samples. CETI (France), specialized research center on textiles, advanced the fraying technique and the open-end spinning process as a third step. The Ják Spinning company (Hungary) developed the ring spinning method while Soft Chemicals (Italy), textile chemical supplier, set up the pilot plant for the non-mechanical treatment of the finishing. The eco-innovation loop closed with Parà, which warped, weaved, and finally covered the finishing treatment to obtain the refined secondary raw material showcased at Proposte Fair. Martel Innovate (Switzerland) closely follows these steps, communicates, and disseminate the project results.

Listen at the words of Barbara Ferrari, from Parà’s Research and Development, presenting the features of the REACT prototype, and explaining how the consortium carried out each phase of the research project.

Next steps

This collaboration paved the way to an acrylic textile recycling process where resource efficiency and environmental sustainability are cornerstones. The REACT consortium will focus now on fostering the synergies and work on exploitation, to ensure the sustainability and the application of such results in the context of future European circular economy.

 

Discover who are the partners making the REACT project possible: https://www.react-project.net/about/consortium/

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