IKEA will switch to using exclusively recycled polyester in its textile products by 2020

At the now traditional annual event "IKEA Democratic Design Days" in Älmhult, Sweden, which this year takes place on June 4 and 5, IKEA announced quite a few novelties, innovations and business collaborations. Among other things, today, on World Environment Day, she presented activities that will mark a new step for the IKEA company in the field of circular business. In its textile products, IKEA will use exclusively recycled polyester from 2020, and is also preparing a collection of products made from ocean plastic waste. Today, too much plastic and textiles end up in the oceans and in landfills. For IKEA, however, these materials are not waste, but valuable resources that can be reused over and over again.

IKEA is committed to eliminating dependence on raw fossil materials and to use exclusively renewable and recycled materials by 2030. By switching from polyester to recycled polyester, IKEA will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy, reduce landfill and ocean pollution, and use fewer resources by converting waste into products.

50 percent of all IKEA polyester textile products are already made from recycled polyester, and with innovations and new designs they will until 2020 all such products. IKEA already uses it for its textile products today five billion collected and recycled PET bottles.

IKEA will also use waste plastic that pollutes the oceans in new products.

Ocean plastic pollution is a major environmental problem, and IKEA is determined to contribute to solving this problem in a positive and proactive way. It will launch in the coming year a collection of products that will be made from recycled plastic, which was also partially removed from the Mediterranean Sea by Spanish fishermen. Collection MUSSELBLOM, which consists of a bag, two pillowcases and a tablecloth, will be available first in IKEA stores in Spain and Italy.

The polyester fabric used in the MUSSELBLOMMA collection is made from recycled plastic, including PET waste, caught in the nets of Spanish fishermen in the Mediterranean Sea. For every kilogram of PET plastic waste that is used to make polyester fabric, an additional nine kilograms of other waste is extracted from the sea, such as: other plastics, metals, rubber, glass and other materials. The extracted plastic is collected on land in ports in containers, where it is cleaned, sorted, mechanically recycled and together with recycled PET bottles made into yarn and fabric. The MUSSELBLOMMA collection was designed by a Spanish designer Inma Bermúdez, and she drew inspiration from the oceans.

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IKEA also wants to inspire others to make positive changes in their attitude towards people and the environment.

With its size and the way it does business, IKEA can affect positive change in the world and at the same time inspire others to follow suit. This will lead to greater efforts to collect and return bottles and plastic food containers to the recycling industry. This will increase as well recycling of polyester-based textiles.