RETHINK! How we are preparing outdoor products for future recycling
Outdoor products are often made from many different materials. This is frequently necessary for functionality, comfort and durability – but it can make it more difficult to recover and reuse the materials at the end of a product’s useful life.
If used textiles are to become raw materials for new products in the future, many different factors need to come together: from product design and collection to sorting and suitable recycling processes.
With RETHINK!, we focus on the area where we can have a direct impact: product design.
Rethinking the circular economy
At VAUDE, we are exploring how materials can be used for as long as possible and, once a product reaches the end of its useful life, increasingly be returned to cycles for reuse.
With RETHINK!, we start at the product development stage. We aim to reduce the variety of materials used and to design products in a way that makes different materials easier to separate.
Products of our circular concept:
« Circular economy is one of the great challenges of our time. Even if the path to this goal is stony and often still unknown, it is enormously important to follow it. We need to use our limited resources more efficiently. »
RETHINK! Rethinking starts with product design
Our goal is to design products so that their materials provide the best possible conditions for future recycling.
To achieve this, we aim to use as few different materials as possible and to achieve a high proportion of one main material. In principle, the fewer different materials that are permanently bonded together, the easier they can be sorted and prepared for potential future recycling.
Where different materials are necessary, we make sure they can be separated from one another as easily as possible at a later stage.
These examples show how we put this into practice with RETHINK!:
Mechanical Stretch:
Stretch materials provide greater freedom of movement in outdoor clothing. With RETHINK!, wherever technically possible, we use mechanical stretch. The stretch is created by the construction of the fabric rather than by adding an additional elastic fibre. This helps reduce the number of different materials used.
Polyester (PET) zips:
Details matter too: in our RETHINK! apparel products, both the zip tape and the zip coil are made from polyester – the same type of material as the main textile fabric.
This can simplify subsequent sorting and recycling because, for example, the zip on a jacket does not necessarily need to be removed.
Innovative weather protection using polyester (PET):
The coating that provides moisture protection on backpacks is usually made from PU or TPU. To improve material purity, we use an innovative PET coating for these backpacks.
Polyester (PET) backpack back with 3D air mesh technology:
A backpack back needs to be stable, comfortable and provide ventilation. A 3D air mesh made from PET makes it possible to combine different functions within a single material system.
This helps reduce the variety of materials used in a backpack, even in a complex component.
Cords & Adjustment:
All cords, cord stoppers, zip pullers and hook-and-loop fasteners used are made from polyester (PET).
Removable parts as an alternative:
With complex outdoor products, it is not always possible to avoid using different materials altogether.
When other materials are necessary for specific functions, we therefore aim to design the relevant components so they can be separated from the main textile material as easily as possible. We also make this visually recognisable – for example by using removable buckles made from recycled polyamide.
Durability remains important
Before we think about potential recycling, there is the product’s use phase. An outdoor product should fulfil its purpose for as long as possible.
That is why quality, durability and repairability remain important aspects of our product development.
With RETHINK!, our aim is to combine these requirements with a product design that uses materials that are as uniform and as easy to separate as possible.
Product design alone does not close the loop
Even a RETHINK! product that has been carefully designed with future recycling in mind cannot automatically be recycled.
Appropriate collection and sorting systems are also required, along with recycling processes that can actually process the materials and make them available again for textile applications.
At present, there are no comprehensive recycling structures that allow RETHINK! products to be recycled in a closed textile loop at the end of their useful life.
For this reason, we do not generally describe RETHINK! products as “circular” or “recyclable”.
Instead, RETHINK! describes what we can do today at the product design stage: designing products using materials that are as uniform as possible and making different materials as easy to separate as possible where their use is necessary.
In this way, we create product-level conditions that can support future recycling.
