As we have evolved our solutions, Stuff4Life has developed services to solve specific challenges, reduce impacts and improve circularity.
Consultancy
Earthshot Prize-nominated Stuff4Life Limited provides consultancy support to organisations with material challenges, with an emphasis on polymers and composites. We have already evolved material and product solutions, influencing design evolution and business transformation through testing and transitioning to servitisation models, as well as creating the technology that is needed for the transition to full circularity and impending extended producer responsibility.
Contact us for more information about how we can help your organisation prepare for producer responsibility, make strides towards net-zero and shift the dial.
Workwear
Stuff4Life Workwear Limited has collaborated with Arco to create new products, services and end-of-life solutions for workwear, uniform and PPE. These products are high-performance, complex and often involve multiple materials to meet the demands of work environments – this can make recycling very difficult and to-date there are very few options.
With funding from Arco, working with Teesside University and the Centre for Process Innovation, Stuff4Life has developed its innovative polyester depolymerisation process which means workwear can be recycled back into as-good-as-new feedstock materials ready for remanufacture back into new polyester.
Through identifying the main challenges in end-of-life workwear, our partnership with Arco has led to improve the design of new workwear, and the result is Arco’s award-winning Responsible Hi-Vis range. Find out more here. Stuff4Life Workwear Limited is now in the process of financing the scale-up of our unique polyester depolymerisation process from kilograms to tonnes. Contact us for more information.
Reuse,rebrand,repurpose
Stuff4Life Second Time Limited, a not-for-profit company, is a result of the business servitisation work we have been doing to support several clients alongside our partnership with Arco and business disrupter Ekobi. In simple terms, the best way of reducing the impact of clothing – or any product – is to keep it in play for longer, at the very least maximising its designed life expectancy.
Every year, thousands of workwear garments are discarded without even being worn, due to poor design, organisation rebrands, personnel or regulation change. This is the ultimate waste – stuff that has been made, shipped and then not even used.
Stuff4Life Second Time Limited keeps products in play for longer by giving them a second life, through debranding, rebranding, repairing or repurposing. Some of these interventions are simple, others more time-consuming and costly. However, our strong belief is to live life to the max… and that goes for clothing too!
The impact of this important step is huge. Our experience suggests up to 50% of workwear could be reused or repurposed and whilst this will reduce over time as design and business systems improve, there will always be benefit to derive from the stuff that can’t be used by the original buyer – and with the Social Impact Portal’s social value of avoiding and recycling polyester set at £158.02 per kilogram (yes, kilogram!), we can all make a difference by reusing, rebranding and repurposing these valuable garments.
For a small fee, Stuff4Life will assess your end-of-life workwear, and either set to rebranding or repurposing it (always by agreement with you first), or recycle it. Fully traceable, fully transparent – action speaks louder than words.
