Today you can no longer stand still in the face of what is happening to the environment – every day before your eyes.
Simply saying ‘plastic is polluting’ is not enough, and there’s no use – taking action is what matters!
In our new article, we want to tell you about the path of 8 companies who decided to take concrete action by investing in recycled plastic materials to make a difference – not only towards greater environment sustainability, but also to cope with the challenges posed by the market, bringing benefits to consumers themselves.
Happy reading!
Bottles from 100% recycled plastic
The world’s first plant manufacturing bottles from 100% recycled plastic is Italian.
Built in Veneto by the company SIPA and opened in Japan, its technology makes it also possible to cut CO2 emissions by 60% and electricity used by 30% – in a perfectly circular system – waste is thus sustainable, cheap, and yet of top quality.
Prada’s collection from recycled nylon
When it comes to fashion, we can’t help but mention Prada. Long ago it chose to invest in the production of bags from recycled nylon. This collection is called Re-Nylon, and it is produced by using Econyl, which is a yarn obtained from plastic that is collected from oceans, fishing nets, and other waste. Moreover, Re-Nylon is endlessly reusable, for it can be regenerated unlimitedly. Prada’s goal is to entirely remove virgin nylon from their production – it’s a revolutionary news if you think that this company uses no less than 700,000 metres of this synthetic fibre every year.
A second life for canvas in Longchamp’s bags
Sticking with the fashion theme, the famous French fashion house Longchamp created ‘Le Pliage Green’, that is the sustainable version – from recycled material – of their worldwide-known iconic bag. Its coloured canvas is, indeed, made of recycled polyamide.
Ferrero’s recycled packaging
The same goes for packaging – it is essential to pay more attention, bearing necessarily in mind its recyclability. In this context, Ferrero launched an important strategy around the 5R’s (Reduce, Remove, Recycle, Renew, Reuse). That allowed this company to remove over 6,500 tons of rigid plastics contained in the packaging of some products, as well as to introduce 90% of recycled material into packaging.
By doing so, it was possible to prevent further 10,000 tons of virgin material from being produced.
Coca Cola’s bottles from rPET
Still sticking with packaging, the multinational company Coca Cola decided long ago to invest in recycling by manufacturing bottles from 50% recycled plastic and starting producing bottles from 100% rPET in North America for months. It’s an important decision made by Coca Cola in order to make their products even more sustainable by taking ‘circular’ action and dropping the use of virgin plastic within the next decade. In addition to that, plastic bottles make it possible to reduce carbon emissions by 21%.
Tupperware’s famous containers from recycled plastic
According to their 3R’s philosophy – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, Tupperware created several product lines from recycled plastic. Their aim is to reduce waste at each the stage of the product life-cycle – design, production and distribution, consumption, recycling, and recovery.
650 million recycled bottles for Ford’s car mats
Turning to the automotive industry, the car manufacturer Ford decided to turn plastic bottles into car mats for one of their highlight models – Ecosport. Over 650 million half-litre plastic bottles have been recycled – all lined up next to one another could cover a distance equal to more than twice the earth’s circumference!
Today, this company recycles 1,2 billion bottles per year.
Cashlab’s duvet from recycled plastic Enrico Diddi’s idea at the Italian company Cashlab was great, too – a ‘sustainable’ duvet from plastic bottles. Indeed, a ‘circular fashion’ and ‘animal-friendly’ concept is applied by replacing goose feather with recycled cachemire and regenerated polyester for the filling, thus helping to recover plastic waste to give it a new, useful life.
We hope our journey to discover some companies and their recycling-related choices was helpful for you to better understand the importance of such an essential topic, even when it comes to purchasing a product.