Personal protective clothing from ecodesign (ECO2OEL)

PRESENTATION AND OBJECTIVES:

The Spanish Circular Economy Strategy “Spain 2030” has been approved by the Council of Ministers on June 2, 2020, laying the foundations to promote a new model of production and consumption in which the value of products, materials and resources are maintained in the economy for as long as possible, in which the generation of waste is reduced to a minimum and those that are not used as widely as possible are used they can be avoided. Although the Circular Economy Strategy is of a cross-cutting nature, it identifies six priority sectors, one of them being the textile and clothing sector where this initiative is framed.

The textile industry is considered one of the sectors that have the greatest impact on the ecosystem, being counted as the fourth with the greatest environmental impact and climate change. That is why the European Commission is focusing on it so that it can be regulated to make it more sustainable through various initiatives and directives.

OROEL aims to establish a circular economy model based on the research and prototyping of a new range of sustainable products through the eco-design of potentially recyclable technical protective garments; and the use of textile and non-textile waste generated both in the production of garments and in those generated after the end of their useful life. This waste is a significant fraction of pre-consumer textile from clothing trimmings and pre- and post-consumer textile from end-of-life personal protective equipment (protective clothing).

In addition, it is important to note that the materials studied in this project are technical fabrics with high added value, the same ones used in the aerospace, military, aeronautics or automotive industries. This is the differentiating point that marks the originality and degree of innovation of the project, since the textile materials used and which are the result of the research, are special technical textiles.

The objective of this project is twofold. The first objective would be to address circularity from the perspective of the product and its processes, i.e. to quantify, and subsequently reduce, the environmental impact of the protective garments designed and manufactured by OROEL and that of its associated manufacturing and logistics processes.

The second objective would be to approach the project from the perspective of the environment and permeation to the value chain. On the one hand, in relation to the results obtained in the first block, the systemic implementation of ecodesign and circularity in OROEL as a business strategy will be addressed, through the creation of a simplified calculation tool that allows the analysis to be systematised and designs and processes to be optimised, always with environmental and circularity criteria. On the other hand, tasks related to the communication and dissemination of this knowledge to the product value chain will be undertaken to allow the different actors involved, which will allow better decisions to be made based on specific knowledge about the environmental and circular profile of the products. The latter may be considered through the development of a system for communicating relevant information about the product, on its correct use to ensure a long useful life and, finally, on its correct management to facilitate an adequate recovery of the materials.

The Oroel Group is a 100% Aragonese business group made up of a group of companies located in different countries and continents whose main activity is the design, manufacture, marketing and maintenance of personal protective clothing. The group was founded in 2004 when Confecciones Oroel, S.A. (hereinafter OROEL) had the need to expand its portfolio to include new services and markets. The founding company is Confecciones Oroel S.A., born in 1980. From the outset, it specialised in a different work wardrobe, much more technical than the one manufactured until then in Spain.

OROEL plays the role of coordinator of the project and addresses the innovative effort with the scientific collaboration of the reference technology centre of Aragon in the field of research and development of materials.