What do you encounter when you buy circular corporate safety clothing? Companies TBI and Dura Vermeer and grid operator Alliance started in 2015 with support, Rebus and MVO Nederland a pilot to make corporate clothing circular. This appears to be a growth process that requires a long breath and an open attitude.
The safety vest seemed a good and well-organized product to start small. But the practice turned out to be more stubborn.
David Monessen, the buyer at Alliance, explains: 'For our safety clothing, multi-standards apply: high light reflective tapes, antistatic, fire-retardant, waterproof, resistant to chemicals... That makes it difficult to get the vests circular. Reclaiming the raw material is difficult, but it can also be processed into new clothing that meets the same strict standards. '
Another stumbling block turned out to be the volume. If you produce 1000 circular vests per company, as the idea was, they are unaffordable and no supplier binds to such an order. And with only three companies in a pilot, larger orders are not on the agenda.
Another factor is that the costs of retrieving the safety vest and re-inserting the chain weigh heavily on a relatively cheap product as a safety vest. The costs to bring the item back to the yarn are still unclear, a 10 to 20% extra price.
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