The Northern European fashion retailer C&A recycles denim leftovers from its own factory in Moenchengladbach, Germany into a new flooring material.
Specially designed for retail environments, the flooring material is made by recycling about 80 per cent of leftovers that include jeans fabrics, cork underlays from the bottle industry and wooden boards processed using natural products such as vegetable fats and natural rubber. The fibers are produced by the Swiss family-run company Lico using natural products such as vegetable fats and natural rubber. Moreover, the company uses energy from renewable sources, including a photovoltaic system and local hydropower plants.
The jeans flooring has been awarded with Environment Product Declaration (EPD) and the Blue Angel Award. It also won the Green Collection Award 2023.
The company providing the jeans scraps, the C&A FIT (Factory for Innovation in Textiles), is a pioneering facility in Mönchengladbach, Germany. Opened in 2021, the factory manufactures around 1,000 pairs of jeans every day using advanced automation, digitalisation and electricity from renewable sources. The factory also conserves water by using only 10–15 liters per a pair of jeans compared to the industry standard of 70 liters.
