Danish partnership aims to recycle overlooked textile category

Many offices, hotels, ships and other public interiors are fitted with carpets and upholstery made from wool–nylon blends. While this combination gives products a long lifespan, it also makes recycling more complex once they are replaced. Manufacturers, researchers and knowledge partners have joined forces in the UnBlend partnership to make these textiles easier to reuse and recycle.

Extending the lifespan of wool–nylon textiles
Tonnes of high-quality carpets and upholstery are incinerated when offices, hotels, ships, libraries, theatres and other public spaces refurbish their interiors. In the EU alone, an estimated 1.6 million tonnes of carpets are discarded each year, with the vast majority either incinerated or sent to landfill.

The challenge lies in the fact that carpets and upholstery often consist of complex blended materials such as wool and nylon, which are currently difficult to recycle despite their high material quality. This is a missed opportunity, says Julie Brender Trads, Business Manager at the Danish Technological Institute, who leads the UnBlend partnership:

- Wool–nylon blends are high-quality materials that are easily overlooked because they represent only a small share of the overall textile stream. However, they form a large and relatively uniform waste stream that can be collected when a hotel or ship undergoes refurbishment. A cruise ship, for example, can easily contain the equivalent of five to ten football pitches of carpeting. These large volumes are an advantage when aiming for recycling at scale.

From circular design to one-off products
UnBlend takes a holistic approach to the challenge of wool–nylon blends. Rather than focusing on a single technical solution, the project works across three parallel tracks: optimised design, creative reuse and recycling technologies.

Within the design track, the partners explore how products can be constructed more intelligently – for example, by reducing the number of adhesives used and selecting material combinations that allow for easier separation and recycling later on. Here, design researchers from Kolding School of Design contribute expertise in circular design.

At the same time, the partners are experimenting with reusing and redesigning textile waste into one-off products. Finally, both existing and emerging technologies are being tested to identify effective methods for separating wool and nylon, enabling the fibres to be recycled individually and reintroduced into the material cycle.

- If we succeed in separating wool and nylon efficiently, we can ensure continuous recycling of high-quality materials. By recycling materials in a closed loop, we can significantly reduce environmental impact compared to producing wool and nylon from virgin resources, says Jeppe Emil Mogensen, Design Director at Gabriel.

- For us at Kolding School of Design, the value lies in gaining insight into real industry challenges and working closely with companies to explore, challenge and co-develop solutions. In this project, we are involved in extending product lifespans through the development of design guides and in exploring the potential of recirculating residual materials into new design solutions, explains Karen Marie Hasling, researcher and lecturer at Kolding School of Design and project lead.

Cross-disciplinary collaboration as a prerequisite
The UnBlend partnership has been initiated by the Danish Technological Institute, bringing together textile manufacturers (Gabriel, Dansk Wilton, SheWorks), researchers and knowledge partners (including Technical University of Denmark and the Danish Technological Institute), as well as design researchers such as Kolding School of Design.

- We have worked in various ways with circularity and recycling for many years, but there is still a lack of commercially viable solutions for our type of material composition. That is why it is highly relevant for us to be part of UnBlend, which brings together a wide range of competencies and enables new solutions, says Lone Ditmer, CEO of Dansk Wilton.