From fridge to shopping bag thanks to award-winning blockchain technology Waste2Wear

Transparent chains are becoming the new normal, the fashion industry feels very fine. Because if you really want to produce sustainably, you need to know where your materials come from and where they flow to. This challenge is new to many companies, but there are also players in the market who worked very early on on the digital tools that will soon become indispensable. Waste2Wear belongs to that club. With its award-winning blockchain technology, the Dutch company has been providing insight into the circular journey of plastic waste for fifteen years, so that the steps are traceable, measurable and verifiable. FashionUnited talked to founder and CEO Monique Maissan.

Track on the blockchain

FIFA World Cup backpacks, Coca Cola hoodies and Mars shopping bags are just a few of the recycled goods that Waste2Wear can produce transparently. “We supply innovative textile products made from recycled plastic,” Maissan begins, “and we do this completely transparently and traceable through a unique blockchain”. By linking physical plastic waste from, for example, refrigerators or plastic bottles on the one hand and digital, logistical information on the other, customers can monitor the entire production process.

The plastic products that Waste2Wear makes certainly do not only come from the textile sector. Basically, two types of waste streams are processed through mechanical and chemical recycling. We are talking about plastic from the inside of a refrigerator, washing machine or food container that is transformed into post-consumer recycled polypropylene (RPP). “We use that to make a lot of shopping bags for very big brands,” assures Maissan. And then there are other plastics from plastic bottles, for example, to make recycled polyester (rPET) for clothing, sports bags, chair covers or curtains, for example. Fabric to fabric is also possible with the help of partners in Italy and America. They can reduce textile products to the building materials of polyester and they are building a factory to also reduce the flow of RPP bags to reusable granules.

Never cheat again

Waste2Wear’s technology guarantees safety and openness in the chain by giving a complete passport to every type of waste. Those pallets and bales are given stickers and locks with a unique QR and barcode on them, which are updated with new information with each scan: a combination of a geolocation with coordinates, time, weight, the person or organization performing the job with a certificate and finally a photo. Everything is put together in a smart contract. Maissan: “It is a whole combination of security ways to verify exactly what raw material of the product is used in the supply chain – whether that is a piece of plastic, a thread, a fabric, or a T-shirt.”

Maissan points out that without such an extensive information flow, blockchain technology misses the mark. “You get more and more companies that offer traceable options with certificates, but what it really comes down to is charging a paper flow. Of course you can upload everything in a blockchain and you can of course also photoshop that information. This system is more than a picture and it works all the way to the end. That is why it has won us several international awards.”

Because you can imitate that a material comes from a legitimate waste management company, you can no longer cheat, Maissan recalls. “It not only assures you that you are making things from recycled plastic, but also that your supply chain is fully compliant. It is also a good check on your social compliance.” The CEO aims to prevent unethical practices, for example illegal forms of subcontracting where plastic waste is collected by non-certified parties and perhaps even children.

Impact in movies

A very valuable extra is the impact information and the impact report EIR (Environmental Impact Report) that customers receive with each product of their order. Plastic recycling has a much lower environmental impact than the production of virgin materials and companies want to communicate this honestly. Maissan: “Customers said: we do now use recycled material and know what we save compared to a virgin alternative via your EIR, but because of the SDG goals and all kinds of new carbon neutral schemes, we actually need to know how much CO2 will eventually become concrete. used.”

Via Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), Waste2Wear can calculate almost exactly how much energy, water and carbon footprint is saved per plastic product. “We recently added this information to each product,” says Maissan. “That’s very cool, because if you order it from a company that specializes in it, you will lose 20,000 euros each time.” To raise the transparency bar even higher, an explanation video is provided with each step: how does that refrigerator actually come apart and how do they make it into something new?

Customers are plentiful – from Mars to Coca-Cola to Fabienne Chapot. This also means that new employees are very welcome. “We need a lot of people and we are a very cool, green company close to Amsterdam,” says Maissan. The door is therefore wide open for young professionals with a passion for honest fashion and tech.