Acoufelt announces its partnership with UPPAREL, a certified Australian textile recovery and recycling organisation to transform polyester felt offcuts and wastage into new, functional material – an important step toward 'closing the loop' on these products.
Acoufelt's FilaSorb™ polyester acoustic felt products have always been manufactured and sourced with sustainability in mind – comprising a minimum of 60% recycled polyester fibres, and generated using 40% renewable solar energy.
However, Acoufelt realised that sustainable design and production wasn't enough. Sending textile factory offcuts to landfill meant wasting an opportunity to repurpose a valuable resource, and considering appropriate end-of-life options became necessary in order to pursue true circular economy practices.
Come 2023, in partnership with UPPAREL, Acoufelt's quality polyester felt waste is now turned into feed stock for FillUP, a cushion and mattress filler manufactured locally in Victoria. Through a process of sorting and shredding, uncontaminated factory offcuts and install wastage can be repurposed into new, functional material, replacing virgin polyester fill in products such as cushions, mattresses, soft toys and protective packaging.
This process of seeking new applications for materials otherwise destined for landfill is at the heart of circular economy thinking, which in effect will reduce carbon emissions and reliance on virgin materials. Since commencing this partnership, Acoufelt has diverted 3,816kg from landfill, preventing 13,356kg of greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere (May 2024).
As the recyclable offcuts and wastage must be free from contaminates and glue, Acoufelt's latest pursuit is in designing innovative methods for installing its products, eliminating the need for glue and other 'contaminating' materials. Imbedding installation accessories such as magnets, cable grippers and felt fasteners into the design of its products is just one of the ways Acoufelt is hoping to remove the need for contaminating glues, as well as encourage the reuse of its products.
This successful enterprise can now be extended to installers of Acoufelt acoustic products, who can send uncontaminated FilaSorb offcuts back to Acoufelt, where this material can join the recycling stream at UPPAREL.
