Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) transformed 1630 kilos of end-of-life uniforms into 362 new items, as part of a project developed in partnership with ToBeGreen, a spin-off of the School of Engineering of UMinho dedicated to the circular economy.

The process made it possible to give a new use to textile materials, avoiding their sending to landfill or incineration. 2029 pieces of uniforms were recovered in eight collections at the operational hubs of Porto, Coimbra, Ermesinde and Almada.

The quantity and state of conservation of the collected items made it possible to send all the materials to new uses, instead of subjecting them to conventional forms of disposal. Textiles were used in the production of different items, including pieces of furniture, such as sofas, poufs and chairs, as well as blankets for IP’s nursery, O Ninho.

According to IP, the recovery of materials avoided the emission of 1881 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent in the face of a landfill scenario. Compared to the incineration hypothesis, the estimated reduction was 1449 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent. There was also an estimated saving of 35.9 cubic meters of water and 81 gigajoules of energy. The values refer to the resources associated with the life cycle of the materials and result from their reuse in the production of new items, avoiding having to use new raw materials entirely.

A part of the materials collected remains catalogued and stored for future recovery operations. In this way, textiles that have not yet been used in the production of the 362 items already delivered can be integrated into new cycles, preventing them from being eliminated and allowing the development of other solutions.

+Info: IP