PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The winter sports industry is a critical sector for the EU: in 2022, 4.8 million pairs of skis and snowboards were produced within EU countries, with a growth of 37% over the previous year for both the domestic and export markets. The same figures are reported for ski bindings, sold combined with skis. Similar numbers are found in the production of ski boots, where 98% of the 3.5 million pairs produced annually are made in Europe, allowing the EU to position itself as a world leader in the ski equipment manufacturing industry. Ski gear high production volumes are associated with the critical issue of managing the end-of-life ski products, after about 150 days of use. Each year, hundreds of thousands of skis, bindings and boots are discarded. The lack of technological solutions available for proper sorting and recycling of ski gear is due to their construction complexity and multi-material composition, the bonding of which makes extremely difficult and, in some cases, not possible the disassembly necessary for recycling. The project will target the critical state of the art of ski gear disposal by providing low-impact technology solutions to be implemented on an industrial scale which will prevent the linear management of end-of-life ski gears in landfills and incinerators, reducing the related waste generation.
The project is based on the previous experience made by the projects LIFE19 ENV/BG/000059 LIFE RESKIBOOT, LIFE23-ENV-IT LIFE IMPACTO7/10114833, LIFE21-ENV-IT LIFE RE-SHOES/101074529, Horizon2020 REPAIR 3D Grant Agreement No. 814588.
OBJECTIVES
LIFE re-WINTER proposes a new circular model based on innovative recycling technologies, targeting post-consumer ski equipment (skis, bindings and ski boots) directly collected from the market, allowing their recycling into secondary raw materials which will be used back in the production of new ski equipment.
The three main project outcomes are:
- Development and demonstration of innovative low-impact recycling technologies targeting end-of-life ski gear, from TRL6 to TRL8.
The project will provide separate recyclable materials through three main technological processes, each one targeting specific materials:
- a selective dissolution plant for the treatment of the plastic parts of skis with low-impact solvents;
- a delamination machine to carry out the delamination of the remaining ski parts; and
- a selecting sorting machine to process bindings and ski boots.
2. Creation of a circular value chain engaging consumers and end-users;
3. Development of a project digital platform for Digital Product Passport (DPP) of the new ski equipment models and end-users’ engagement.
RESULTS
- - Collection and logistics of post-consumer ski gear of any brand: the project will collect 10,000 pairs of equipment for each gear category treated in the project, namely 10,000 pairs of skis, 10,000 pairs of bindings and 10,000 pairs of ski boots, from 32 rental shops spread across the Northern Italian regions along the alpine arc.
- Development of three innovative recycling technologies:
i) Design and installation of the industrial-scale plant for the selective separation of ABS parts from skis;
ii) Design and installation of the automatic delamination machine for metal parts of skis;
iii) Optimization of PLASTICSORT’s multi-material sorting machines to process ski boots and bindings.
The selective dissolution and mechanical sorting/delamination of components will reach high degree of sorting efficiency (from 95 to 98%) and material purity (from 97 to 99%).
- Development of new ski gears according to design-for-recycling methods using secondary raw materials also in structural components: 1,000 pairs of skis, 1,000 pairs of bindings and 1,000 pairs of ski boots.
The 1,000 pairs of each product will be tested and made available within the rental centres for the public.
