US based material solution provider Trinseo’s footwear arm Applazioni Plastic Industrial (API) has been accredited the Global Recycled Standard (GRS) of the Textile Exchange for three thermoplastic elastomers (TPUs).
GRS is a global non-profit that drives the transformation of the textile industry to reduce the impact of the industry on the environment.
These components, which are under the APILON 52 Eco brand, are part of the company’s sustainable solution portfolio and contain a wide variety of recyclable materials. GRS certifications provide independent proof of any component’s sustainability claims.
In order to be certified, a material must contain at least 20 percent pre-customer or post-customer recycled content. According to API, it has been working closely with its customer, VAMAS, the luxury footwear manufacturer for the past five years on a closed-loop initiative to secure scrap material coming directly from the production floor and return it to virgin material for re-processing.
The company mentioned that this scrap is considered a post-industrial recycled (PIR) component because it left the original place of production, API, and was recovered from an outside facility, VAMAS.
Giancarlo Busa, a global market leader for TPE footwear at Trinseo said, “This is an example of a creative material solution developed together with one of our valued customers to achieve sustainability goals”.
By having up to 50 percent recyclable materials in our APILON 52 Eco Grade, we have been able to reduce the use of fossil-based raw materials by reusing ingredients that would otherwise have been scrapped, he added.
ICEA, a non-profit consortium that certifies food and non-food companies in areas of sustainability, audited API, endorsed by GRS and Textile Exchange. The audit for GRS detected the component from the time it was produced and integrated at API to the VAMAS manufacturing facilities, where it was re-realized, separated by color and reground. The auditors then followed the process of returning to the API for re-processing and finally supplied to VAMAS for use in new footwear applications.
Over the next few years its vision is to continue to impact sustainability through an innovative materials portfolio where a growing percentage is considered sustainable because of their composition, API said.
