RECURF: Re-using Circular Urban Fibres and Biobased Plastics in Urban Products

The metropolitan region Amsterdam is firmly committed to these issues. The synthetic material- and fibre processing industry has indicated the need of knowledge development for new circular material combinations. The project RECURF from the University of Amsterdam responds to this. The Sustainable & Functional Textiles research group of Saxion is one of the partners in this project.

Properties and sustainability of bio based synthetic materials with urban fibres

In RECURF we research properties and sustainability of (textile) materials, in which bio-based plastics with urban fibres are combined. In addition to that we explore the development of interior and exterior use. Then we evaluate the designs on technical, economic and ecological level.

Desired result

Knowledge new material combinations and circular business models

The project RECURF will lead to knowledge about properties, processing techniques and application options for new material combinations and knowledge development for circular business models. With this we develop inspiring examples of applications. Because the project brings different parties together from the bio-based plastics value chain, the fibre processing, the textile market and universities. The project also contributes to cross-cycle and cross-sectoral networking. The knowledge is especially interesting for the metropolitan region Amsterdam because of the presence of companies out of the concerning sectors and the fact that urban waste from this region is used in the project. We shall however spread the knowledge wider, by including education from universities, seminars, publications and presentations on, among others, the Dutch Design Week.

Partners project RECURF

The project is being carried out by the University of Amsterdam (research group Urban Technology) in collaboration with the Sustainable & Functional Textiles research group from Saxion and will be assisted by the industry-wide institutes for polymers (DPI Value Centre) and textile branch organisation (MODINT), and with the input of knowledge institutions  TU Delft en Avans Hogescholen.

The project will be executed together with fourteen sme-entrepreneurs who want to take the lead in the processing of bio-based synthetic materials and fibre materials into new products. Furthermore, three big companies from the MRA (Starbucks, Nike and Sympany) participate to the project. They have access to extensive waste of fibre materials and simultaneously act as launching customer of the developed products.

Duration

The project RECURF runs from march 2015 till end of August 2017.

Contact

For more information you can contact Gerrit Bouwhuis.