Nachhaltige Nachtruhe - Matratzen werden endlich recyclebar
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Excellence in Business to Business
Circular Impacts
Details
Evonik is developing a new technology that enables the recycling of mattresses made from flexible polyurethane foam. Using an innovative hydrolysis process—essentially breaking the foam down with water—the company can recover the original raw materials used to produce the foam. Every year, around 40 million mattresses are thrown away in the EU alone, representing hundreds of thousands of tons of polyurethane waste. With this technology, that waste can now be transformed into valuable raw materials that help reduce reliance on fossil resources.
The Jury‘s Statement
Used mattresses still too often end up as waste, even though they contain valuable raw materials. With a new recycling technology, Evonik is demonstrating how the circular economy can be put into practice for mattress cores: a process that reprocesses polyurethane foam so that it becomes a high-quality raw material for new applications again. The approach consistently considers the material life cycle to the end and combines ecological impact with economic viability. Particularly noteworthy are the clear, scalable solution to a mass problem and the signal that even complex composite structures can find their way back into the cycle.
