Ikea Home Textiles Range Made From Recycled Worker Uniforms

While rolling out a new co-worker uniform design over the past couple of years, IKEA also collected hundreds of pallets of old co-worker uniforms, which has been turned into a home textiles collection.

Växelbruk is a collection of decorative and functional home furnishing items which has been manufactured from recycling old co-worker uniforms.

The Växelbruk collection includes throws, cushion covers, curtains, and bags made from 300 tons of recycled uniforms collected from IKEA European stores and is all set to be launched in Europe.

First the fabric is shredded to make fibres, which are shorter than virgin fibres. Next the fibres are spun and woven into a new textile, sanitised at a high temperature, and then stitched into the final product.

The making of coloured fabrics, especially multi-coloured ones, usually requires dyeing, a process that can add quite a cost to both resources and the price of the final product in stores.

A key take away from the making of Växelbruk was being able to adjust colours without having to go through a dyeing process.

All it took was a bit of playing around with the colours of the recycled fibres; combining them instead to create the desired colour effect.