From co-worker uniforms to fresh, recycled designs
Meet the new collection laying the groundwork for recycling textiles within IKEA!
While rolling out a new co-worker uniform design over the past couple of years, IKEA also collected hundreds of pallets of co-worker uniforms with old design. The majority of the volumes came from worn-out clothes returned by co-workers, with a smaller addition of overstock of pre-ordered uniforms that were left unused due to the transition to the new design. The collected uniforms formed part of an exploration of textile recycling within IKEA.
VÄXELBRUK, an upcoming collection of decorative and functional home furnishing items, is one fruit of that labour. As a Business and Innovation Deployment Leader at IKEA, Luca Clerici tells us about the work behind VÄXELBRUK and how it marks another step in the IKEA journey towards a circular business model.
Luca Clerici has always known to truly treasure things. In his childhood, growing up in a small town in northern Italy, it could be a broken toy to be repaired rather than thrown away, or the last few maccheroni he might’ve initially preferred to leave behind on the plate in favour of more playtime.
“My parents were always working; so I was raised by my grandfather, who lived through the poverty of the second world war. He taught me not to waste anything, that everything is super precious," says Luca. “It helped me develop my sense of responsibility in the choices I make in my private life, and also inspires me to take every opportunity to help with treating things this way in my work as well."
One of Luca’s favourite things about his role at IKEA is getting to investigate new production techniques and materials for future product development. “This is the fun part of my job, working with a lot of different industries and materials, with a lot of different people, to solve something together." So when the old co-worker clothes were being brought in from across Europe, he jumped at the chance to explore the potential of post-consumer textiles as a material resource.
Perhaps the most tangible result of this particular project is VÄXELBRUK: a collection of throws, cushion covers, curtains, and bags made using 300 tonnes of recycled uniforms collected in European markets from 2020 to 2022. It’s finally set to launch soon in stores across Europe.
“This is the fun part of my job, working with a lot of different industries and materials, with a lot of different people, to solve something together." – Luca
As soon as the first truckload of uniforms came in, development started. First on the agenda: the intricate unmaking of the uniforms: a process that actually inspired the particular range of items for the collection.
“The fabric is shredded to make fibres, naturally making them much shorter than virgin fibres. This means they have lower mechanical performance, but the performance in every other aspect is just as good as virgin material," explains Luca.
“For example, if you make a fabric that’s used for an office chair, the requirements for good quality are quite demanding of mechanical performance in particular, because of the high usage and friction. With, say, a curtain the requirements are different. The stress on the product comes from other things, like light, for which we can ensure the same good quality with these fibres as well."
While the VÄXELBRUK products don’t quite reveal their origins at first glance, that’s by design. After all, with the bold, recognisable colours of the IKEA coworker uniform, the collection could have looked very different. Luca chuckles at the thought, noting that a Swedish flag range wasn’t the vision for the collection at all.
First, co-worker uniforms are shredded down for the fibres to be extracted.
Next, the fibres are re-spun.
The resulting yarn is then woven into a new textile, sanitised at a high temperature, and stitched into the final product.
“We got a lot of good ideas from the supplier in the development process and ended up introducing other fabric colours from industrial textile surplus to create a different fabric," Luca adds. "It helped make the yellow less yellow and the blue less blue."
The making of coloured fabrics, especially multi-coloured ones, usually requires dyeing – a process that can add quite a cost to both resources and the price of the final product in stores. A key takeaway from the making of VÄXELBRUK was being able to adjust colours without having to go through a dying process. All it took was a bit of playing around with the colours of the recycled fibres; combining them instead to create the desired colour effect.
One of the most challenging – and valuable – lessons learned from the making of VÄXELBRUK, however, didn’t have to do with its specific product development or design at all.
“It was basically the first time we managed and repurposed our own potential waste within IKEA at this scale, so we had to learn to navigate quite a complex landscape in terms of requirements, legislation, and logistics. How to move the material, working with the right carriers with special licenses to receive and manage them. We studied all of these things very closely," Luca explains.
"It was basically the first time we managed and repurposed our own potential waste within IKEA at this scale, so we had to learn to navigate quite a complex landscape." – Luca
These complexities and many like them are the reason much of these explorative projects have a limited extent and release, and why this first-time project took place in European markets alone. And it’s the kind of groundwork that makes way for relatively swift add-ons thereafter – as proven by the VÄXELBRUK bag.
When development of the collection was practically at the finish line, a discovery was made in stores where the new uniforms were being unpacked. One of the new top designs turned out to be a little too transparent, making those tops unfit for comfortable use. Fortunately, with all the processes already in place, the team could work relatively swiftly to be resourceful with these materials as well.
“The t-shirt material with its stretch properties was better fit to create a different product, using a non-woven material process instead," explains Luca.
Where woven material has looms, non-woven material fibres have to be placed on a form of conveyor belt to be punched together into a structure. Low-melt fibres are then added to act as a sort of glue between the fibres when run through a high temperature process to create the woven feel.
“The low-melt fibres are made with virgin polyester, which is also what keeps the fibres together in the VÄXELBRUK bags,” continues Luca, noting that it’s the only product in the collection to not be made fully from recycled post- and pre-consumer recycled materials.
Luca lights up as he recounts the marathon sprint and team effort behind the collection – and how it set an example for recycling and repurposing materials within IKEA.
“There were so many cross-disciplinary learnings, not only about textiles. We’re sharing these across IKEA for people to use in everything from the supply chain to product development and design. Many good things have happened because of this project."
He also can’t help but share that he’s working on a fair share of those good things now, involving a range of recycled materials featuring textiles and more!
The VÄXELBRUK collection will be available in select European markets in February 2024. Until then, check out the other new collections and products available at IKEA in your country.