For three and a half years, six companies and three expert organisations from the Netherlands, the UK, Belgium, France, and Spain have been working on the development of closed-loop workwear solutions. Their focus was on protective, high-visibility workwear for public (road) workers.
Many challenges had to be overcome in the design, production, use and recycling phases. From the outset, the disassembly of used garments into recyclable and non-recyclable parts was a key element, using the innovative Wear2Go technology. This technology consists of an electromagnetically breakable thread and a tunnel disassembler to separate the various parts, in particular the visibility stripes and zips that are not PES recyclable. On the other hand, a lot of effort has been put into the development of PES recycling compatible waterproof tapes and membranes, transfers for logos and on zips and buttons. To close the loop on PES textile recycling, both mechanical and chemical recycling have been explored.
