This Italian company wants your clothes to be made from garbage
May 9, 2019
THE SUNDAY MORNING – by Chiara Remondini
To you, it’s a garbage dump. To Italian entrepreneur Giulio Bonazzi, it’s the launchpad for a Stella McCartney handbag or a pair of Levi’s jeans.
“When I look at a landfill, I see a goldmine,” Bonazzi, the founder and chief executive officer of nylon manufacturer Aquafil, said in an interview.
As volumes of plastic-based waste reach a tipping point in oceans and trash heaps around the world, Bonazzi’s company is recycling the material and turning it into nylon used to make upscale apparel and accessories.
The yarn is made from recycled material which may have started life as carpet or industrial plastic, or even part of an abandoned fishing net — an increasingly promising area for recycling.
“Consumer demand for new products is almost endless, but the planet’s resources aren’t,” Bonazzi, 56, said. “That’s OK, because we can have both state-of-the-art products and a better environment.”
