Futura

A paper from textile production waste

ALBINI_next has been working on an ambitious circular economy project with the R&D department of Fedrigoni, a leading European manufacturer of special paper for packaging, graphics and art.

This partnership has resulted in the production of a new type of paper with an outstanding 25% of fibres obtained from textile waste of Albini Group's production sites. This reduces the amount of virgin cellulose normally used in the manufacturing of paper and recovers textile by-products normally designated for disposal. The fibres are obtained from both material waste produced by the sampling, quality control and weaving departments.

These scarps are usually designated for disposal.

Thanks to the project with Fedrigoni, not only do we recover waste, but we also valorise a by-product from an up-cycling viewpoint.

The industrial process

The manufacturing of the paper starts with the selection of discarded fabrics, created by the weaving process or by the sampling and quality control departments. The fabrics are frayed to be converted into fibre, which Fedrigoni adds to the cellulose mixture for the manufacturing of paper.

This process has produced approximately three tons of paper so far, using 950 kg of discarded fabrics.

Albini Group has decided to use this paper to build its presentation media for the Denim collection and the Albiate brand Service Program.

The project fits perfectly within the corporate sustainability strategy, founded on a number of the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and complying with the criteria envisaged for innovation, reduction and recycling of waste. More specifically, this activity aims to support Goal 12 “Responsible consumption and production”, which envisages a substantial decrease in the production of waste by means of prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse of waste.