From February 6th until February 11th is the Dutch Circular Economy Week. The goal of this week is to show how you can operate your business in a circular way. All across the Netherlands, you can find events on various topics regarding a circular economy. In this blog, we tell you about the importance of a circular economy and we will show you 5 of our brands that focus on circularity!
Circular Economy
It might not come as a surprise to you that our planet is running out of resources. With how we are consuming and treating our Earth right now, we already need 1.8 planets in order to provide for our resources and absorb our waste. The Dutch government has set it as a goal for the Netherlands to have a 100% circular economy by the year 2050. A week like the Dutch Circular Economy week helps to inspire companies and draws attention to this subject and its urgency.
Loop.a life
Loop.a life is a Dutch circular and sustainable fashion brand. It is their mission to change the clothing and textile industry in a circular and truly sustainable way to contribute to a clean and green planet.
Their 100% circular production process works in 8 steps: Collect, sort, clean, fiberise, blend, spin, design and knit. The collected old clothes are used to create new yarns, which are then made into new sweaters. They are literally closing the loop!
Click here to see the loop.a life collection!
Source: Loop.a life
Kusala
Soap with good karma! Kusala is a Rotterdam-based brand that makes soap with good karma, in the circular hub BlueCity. They produce on a small scale with honest products and materials, without the use of palm oil and packaged plastic-free.
On average, the soaps by Kusala are 46% circular. They use as many residual flows as possible and work closely with other small producers who supply herbs, aloe vera juice, honey and goat’s milk. On the package of each soap, the percentage of circularity is listed.
Click here to see the Kusala soaps!
Source: Kusala
Instock
One-third of all food production does not even make it on our plates. Instock is trying to rescue this food. Together with an Amsterdam-based brewery, they develop unique food waste beers in order to make the food industry more circular. Pieper Bier is made from rescued potatoes and Bammetjes Bier is made from rescued bread.
Fun fact: with the Instock beers that we sold in our store in January 2023 we rescued a total of 55kg of food!
Source: Instock
Thinking MU
TRASH COLLECTION
You might already know the Spanish sustainable fashion brand Thinking MU from their colourful prints and playful design. But do you also know about their circular collection called TRASH?
TRASH is a waste-free project whereby they make newly upcycled clothes out of fibres recovered from post-consumer recycled materials along with new sustainable fibres. Where others see trash, they see valuable materials that can be transformed into new fashion items over and over again!
The TRASH collection:
• needs fewer dyes since the old garments are already coloured
• uses 80% less water than other collections
• is closing the loop and contributing to a circular economy
Click here to see the TRASH collection!
Source: Thinking MU
ZO
ZO is a Dutch brand that thinks waiting for 2050 to be 100% circular is way too late. That is why they already produce 100% circular cleaning products. A mainstream cleaning product is a plastic bottle filled with 95% water and 5% chemicals. This means that every year, we waste 500 million plastic bottles and unnecessarily transport 475 million litres of water.
ZO is doing it differently! You pour their concentrated 100% natural cleansing solution until the marked line on their bottles. Fill the rest of the bottle with water, mix it and you are ready to clean! You can use that bottle over and over again because you only need a refill for the cleaning solution. This solution comes in a bag that you can send back to ZO and is then 100% recycled.
Source: ZO
