TEXAID launches first recycled tote bag with a digital product passport

In a mission to increase the use of post-consumer fibers in textiles, TEXAID is launching a white tote bag made of 50% post-consumer textile waste and 50% ocean-bound plastic waste. The bag is to be launched in Winter 2022 and sold in TEXAID’s second-hand shops under the Name “Vintage Revivals” throughout Germany. The bag incorporates a circularity.IDⓇ digital product passport, developed by the Berlin-based company, circular.fashion.

By scanning an NFC chip in the bag with a mobile phone, customers will be taken to the circularity.IDⓇ product platform, where they can find more information on the supply chain, as well as instructions on how to refurbish or where to send the bag back for proper recycling. The digital product passport enables transparency about the whole bag production and is also an easy and quick way for customers to get the information they need.

The chip is also able to be scanned at circular.fashion’s intelligent sorting stations, which are stations for manual sorters to quickly access product information they need to make better sorting decisions, such as fiber composition. Several of these stations were recently installed in TEXAID’s sorting plant in Apolda, to facilitate optimized reuse and recycling decisions, and ensure a next life for the product or fiber.

In the fashion & textiles sector, less than 1% of fibers are recycled into new fibers. The textiles that cannot be used second-hand in their original function are today downcycled into secondary raw materials in an open-loop. The aim of the circular economy is to design out waste by keeping it in the loop and through this saving resources.

The tote bag is made from 50% post-consumer white cotton textiles which cannot be worn any longer, and collected by TEXAID in Germany and Switzerland. They were then sorted in TEXAID’s facility in Apolda, Germany, and later spun, woven, and manufactured in Italy. The other 50% is ocean-bound plastic waste, which has a high risk of entering the ocean and therefore was recycled into fiber by Unifi.

The cotton material has been shredded by Marchi & Fildi in Biella, IT, who then spun the recycled cotton and recycled polyester fibers into a yarn. This yarn has been woven into a fabric by Tessitura Casoni.T.F.C. The care label and flag label have been produced by the German company Bornemann-Etiketten GmbH and an NFC Chip from circular.fashion has also been integrated into the product. All components have then been sewn together in Tuscany by the social cooperation Asilea at the partner operation Paimex SRL, who also screen printed our design onto this bag.

“With this bag, we wanted to showcase that creating great products made of postconsumer textile waste is possible. As TEXAID we want to leverage a high-quality feedstock and in the end fiber to the circular value chain to integrate into new products made not only from other waste streams but also used textiles. This bag was a first bold step we took and were able to create a capsule product for our own Vintage Revivals second hand stores”. Thomas Böschen, Managing Director of Texaid, ReSales, and Vintage Revivals

About

TEXAID offers customized solutions to enable circular textile value chains. With over 40 years of experience, TEXAID is a trusted solution provider for collection, sorting, resale, and recycling of pre- and post-consumer textiles as well as footwear. Over 1’000 employees process more than 280 million items (around 80,000 tons) of end-of-use textiles and shoes throughout Europe and the USA each year. With its research and development, TEXAID is the enabler of future sustainable textiles.

circular.fashion is a Berlin-based innovation company founded in 2018 with the goal of enabling a circular fashion system. They support fashion players on their journey towards circularity starting from the design phase with their workshops and criteria, to software products and establishing a reverse supply chain. Since then, they have collaborated with a number of established fashion and lifestyle brands such as Zalando, Kering group, H&M, ARMEDANGELS, and Ganni. Visit their website to learn more.