12. Dec 2022
traceless materials and C&A launch first pilot product
The Hamburg-based start-up traceless materials (Germany) has developed hooks made from their material innovation traceless®. During a pilot phase over the upcoming months, fashion retailer C&A (Vilvoorde, Belgium) uses the traceless® hooks as a replacement for conventional plastic hooks in its store in Hamburg Altona.
Hereby the two companies are joining forces to reduce the use of conventional plastics in the fashion packaging industry.
Every year around 8–10 billion plastic clothing hooks are produced globally, with only a small share of them being recycled. Especially the smaller single-use hooks pose a challenge for recycling due to their size. In a joint development project, the start-up therefore engineered their traceless® material for C&A’s sock-hooks. On the 8th of December 2022 the pilot product was launched in the C&A Store in Hamburg Altona.
With traceless®, the female-founded circular bioeconomy start-up offers an alternative material to plastics which is based on plant residues, compostable, and climate-friendly. After the successful commissioning of their pilot plant earlier this year, the sock hooks are the first pilot product to be launched.
For traceless, the sock-hooks are a significant milestone in their efforts to replace plastics in products, hereby aiming to maximize their impact on various environmental challenges like plastic pollution and climate change as quickly as possible.
“For us at traceless, this small hook means a big step forward: it is the first pilot product to hit the shelves made from our bio-circular material innovation! After months of development time, our whole team is incredibly proud of this achievement”, says Anne Lamp, CEO & Co-Founder of traceless materials.
For this project, traceless materials has teamed up with European fashion retailer C&A. The collaboration fits in with C&A’s recent circularity initiatives, including Cradle to Cradle Certified® product innovations and material science collaborations. With these projects, C&A is underpinning its role as a leading innovative player in the textile sector and is taking a significant step in meeting the goals of its 2028 Global Sustainability Strategy through the far-reaching reduction of single-use plastics.
“Our collaboration with traceless is an important step on our way to reaching our ambitious goal of replacing consumer facing single-used plastics in our stores with sustainable alternatives by 2028”, says Aleix Busquets Gonzalez, Head of Global Sustainability at C&A. AT
https://www.traceless.eu/
https://www.c-and-a.com/