Ballpoint pens made from old newspapers, coffee mugs made from coffee grounds, bottles made from waste glass or advent calendar inlays out of waste paper – recycled and upcycled products are omnipresent in the promotional products industry. Ideas on how to make new promotional products out of discarded goods, production leftovers and waste, are booming in times of increased sustainability awareness. However, the theme does also bring challenges with it and it is still a long, bumpy road from individual flagship projects through to the true circular economy.
When Michael Braungart, one of the most important visionaries of the circular economy, wants to explain the cradle-to-cradle principle he developed together with Bill McDonough, he often uses an image from nature: the cherry blossom. In this way, according to Braungart, “nature has been producing effectively albeit fully inefficiently for millions of years. A cherry tree yields thousands of blossoms and fruits without damaging the environment. On the contrary: As soon as they fall to the ground they become nutrients for animals, plants and soil in the surrounding area.”
Nature doesn’t know any waste, everything it produces and what literally falls off it, is reused. Can’t this principle be transferred over into the economy and in that way how goods are produced? That is the dream of many eco-visionaries, who have committed themselves to the circular economy.
Old principle
A circular economy in the true sense of the word is a concept with many roots and different schools of thought. At the end of the 1970s it became a topic of academic discourse and went on to influence modern economic systems, industrial processes and the legislation to do with manufacturing products and waste disposal. Described is an alternative to the linear economy that continually produces high volumes of products that have a limited service life. The take-make-waste society is to be replaced by the idea: Take waste and make something out of it.
Whereby the circular economy is based on the three R principles: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. “Reduce” refers to the reduction or even better avoidance of waste. To improve the processing options, as few materials as possible are to be used for the product. Recycling items replace the use of new materials. This includes the recycling concept as well as repairing items. Items are only recycled if they cannot be reused or further processed. The quality of the recycling granulate is to be as close to the base material as possible. So that the circular economy can work, these aspects have to be taken into account during the product design process already.
In the course of the battle against the climate change, the circular economy model has hugely gained in significance. In concrete terms, its advocates hope to achieve three essential effects: A reduction in the consumption of raw materials, less environmentally-unfriendly waste and a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. In this way, in their status report the associations of the German circular economy have worked out that 60 million t of CO2 emissions can be avoided yearly through recycling and the subsequent implementation of secondary raw materials.
The progression towards a circular economy is also being fuelled by the law makers, for example by the Ecodesign Directive of the EU that was revised in 2024 and which foresees a much more efficient use and reuse of EU materials. To promote recycling the industry players have to state the amount of products thrown away each year and the reasons for their destruction.
Top theme on the promotional products market
In the light of these developments it is hardly surprising that the circular economy theme has long since become popular among the manufacturers of promotional products. On the one hand, there is the need to improve one’s sustainability balance. On the other hand, promoting companies look for promotional products that match their own philosophy. And those, who make sure they operate in a resource-saving manner, like more and more producing companies, want to underline this approach with the selection of appropriate haptic advertising media made from recycled and upcycled materials. And thirdly, the concept of the circular economy is also exciting for the producers from an economic point of view in times of high energy and transport costs as well as increasingly expensive raw materials. Last, but not least due to the higher demand for recycling goods, the availability of recycled basic materials is becoming greater compared to a few years ago and the prices for recycled items are becoming cheaper and cheaper – many textile and bag suppliers are meanwhile implementing rPET goods as a standard instead of virgin polyester.
The solutions are becoming more and more sophisticated, the systems better and better, the design more and more elaborate so that circular economy really doesn’t have remain a utopia. Nevertheless, it is still a vision of the future. What the market can offer so far, are initial steps, good ideas that demonstrate true commitment. However, it is still a long, bumpy road until we have actually reached a circular economy.
Challenges
For example, at the moment many production processes that are commonly referred to as “recycling”, are actually downcycling – i.e. when cleaning cloths, painter’s fleece or insulation material are produced from textile fibres. That is of course still better than simply throwing the textile waste away, but on the other hand still far away from what the cherry trees do, since new trees can arise from their “waste”.
One problem for the producers is the lack in single-origin materials, which de facto makes it almost impossible to reuse all of the processed materials. The example of textiles demonstrates this very impressively. To be able to feed textile fibres back into the cycle, they have to have a very high purity – in other words clothes made from pure cotton (over 85%) or pure polyester (over 80%). The problem is that over 60% of all textiles comprise of a blend of fibres, for instance cotton with polyester, elastane or viscose or wool with polyacrylic, not without good reason too: Each fibre lends the fabric a specific characteristic, so each blend has a special properties profile and is implemented for instance so that a jumper holds its shapes, a pair of work trousers is elastic, yet at the same time durable or so that a shirt is particularly suitable for being imprinted. So, there will always be mixed textiles.
Unfortunately, according to the current state of technology these mixed fabrics can’t be recycled. Whether closed-loop recycling in the textile section can ever be carried out economically and energy-efficiently at commercial level is thus doubtful, what’s more the necessary technologies are either still under development or are in the laboratory phase.
Almost all article groups are faced with similar challenges – this is due to the complexity of the supply chains and functionality of products. Ultimately, it is not expedient either to replace items with products made of recyclable mono-materials, if they lose usability or likeability as a result and are thus used less. And although the recycling processes are often less energy-intensive than producing new raw materials, their products are often sold for expensive prices on the global market – everything is dependent on the demand.
So individual pioneers succeeding on the market with good ideas will actually not suffice to spark off an industrial revolution and establish the circular economy, but indeed the extensive support of the politicians, producers and disposing parties is required. It is also about convincing the buyers to switch over to circular products.
Much is a matter of price, of course, but not purely: Both promoting companies and consumers are indeed prepared to pay a bit more for special products. And many upcycling products definitely have a special touch. Interesting connections arise in the so-called open-loop recycling process, whereby for instance writing instruments or items of furniture are produced from textile fibres, bags from old pieces of canvas or notebooks are made from apple rests. Fantastic stories can be told using such “second life” products and advertising messages emotionalised.
