Tessile

Cosa fa?

Tessile is a product-service that promotes the reuse of discarded clothes fabrics. It also informs and involves users in proper disposal and upcycling, offering information and collection services to create new products without polluting.

La tua ispirazione

The textile sector is one of the most polluting industries in the world, producing around 10% of global CO2 emissions. Each European citizen buys an average of 26kg of textiles per year, 11kg of which are discarded. This has created a vicious cycle of pollution in both the production and post-consumption phases. The European Commission has focused on defining sustainable strategies for this sector. Methods such as slowing down trends, textile upcycling and encouraging the second hand market can contribute to the recovery of these materials, which are considered waste, and promote circular economies. These practices offer design opportunities.

Come funziona?

With upcycling, up to 100 per cent of the fabric of discarded clothes can be used, making it a solution that, if widely disseminated, would allow more people to take action and start thinking about the unsustainable direction taken by the textile industry. The fabric, combined with a binding compound, becomes extremely easy to shape and, once dry, very durable, creating new materials that differ from the original fabric in quality, texture and appearance. Tessile is a product-service created to raise user awareness of the reuse of discarded clothing fabrics. It informs the user, via an app, on how he or she can personally contribute to the proper disposal of these textiles, offering an information and collection service so that textiles, instead of being thrown away, are collected and sent to organisations that use them for upcycling. It also enables people to upcycling themselves with the possibility of reproducing the material developed for the project.

Processo di progettazione

Tessile was developed from the desire to first create a material that could extend the useful life of the fabric of discarded clothes, which is increasingly regarded as waste, without its potential being exploited. In order to develop the material, several tests were carried out to obtain a very resistant result, which could be easily produced by anyone and would eventually allow the various components used to be broken down. The decision was therefore made to use starch glue, which combined with fabrics becomes a material that can be easily moulded through moulds and once dry is extremely resistant. The proportion of glue to fabric, as well as the composition of the glue itself and the size of the fabric pieces, is the result of various experiments. For the end life this material can also be mixed in a new compound. Tessile is a product-service which, by means of a mobile application, informs the user about the situation of the textile industry and its environmental impact, divulges step by step various methods of textile upcycling (indicating the necessary components and processes so that anyone can try it out for themselves) and offers a service for sending one's own discarded clothes to companies and organisations involved in fibre regeneration and textile upcycling.

In che modo è differente?

Tessile wants to exploit the upcycling of clothes to extend the life of fabric use, and differs from similar products in that it also performs an information and dissemination service about practices that users can apply themselves to carry out the reuse process independently, making the knowledge needed to change their consumption habits accessible to as many people as possible. This allows users to be advocates of circular economies themselves. Furthermore, the very composition of the material developed allows for the various components to be broken down in such a way that at the end of the life of the product created from the water-starch-fabric compound, all materials can be disposed of properly.

Progetti per il futuro

Tessile proposes itself as a dissemination of an unsustainable production system, exploiting a very versatile material and affecting people's awareness, through an information system that makes the situation clearer and that, above all, spreads to as many people as possible the ways in which they can acquire new techniques to be advocates in the first person of the change in consumption habits, which is and will be increasingly necessary. This will lead to an awareness necessary to change the entire production system and the consumption trends we are witnessing.

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