Balderin

Recycled wool gives old and worn-out garments new life. It is a great way of being more sustainable. The Italian recycled wool we use is collected from all around the globe. It originates both from old garments as well as cutting waste from new fabrics. The materials are sorted by fiber content and colors, cleaned and reduced back down to fiber. From this fiber, new material is spun and knitted into new, warm and cozy garments.

We have chosen to use recycled wool in many of our paddings and midlayers. It saves a considerable amount of water and, of course, stops old garments from ending up in landfills. This process reduces CO2 emissions by 83 percent compared to using virgin wool. Wool recycling as a method has been used in Europe for hundreds of years.

Polyamide is a synthetic nylon fiber, produced from crude oil or renewable plant-based oils. It creates an extraordinarily strong and versatile fabric. In turn, recycled polyamide can be derived from both post-industrial or post-consumer feed stock. In our collection we use a mix of both.

For recycled polyamide fibers, post-consumer waste is our first choice, since we want to help recycling on a global scale any way we can. Post-consumer waste used for recycled polyamide includes discarded industrial fishing nets, old carpets and rigid textiles. Reusing oil based raw materials in a responsible manner is in our mind an important step in the right direction.

Recycling polyamide adds another layer of complexity to the production process, but the result is a reliable, long-lasting fabric that can be used for both lightweight and quick-drying, and wind and rain proof fabrics, depending on the thickness. Using material that otherwise would become waste saves both energy and resources.

We were the first outdoor company ever to use recycled polyamide across our entire backpack line in 2009.