BASF and VAUDE develop sustainable outdoor pants made from recycled tires

BASF Ultramid® Ccycled™

• Joint News Release
• BASF and VAUDE take a step towards an effective circular economy together
• Polyamides based on chemically recycled tires form the basis for robust outdoor pants
• Available in stores from March 2022

(PRESS RELEASE) LUDWIGSHAFEN, 19-Mar-2021 — /EuropaWire/ — BASF together with outdoor apparel company VAUDE announce the development of new product line that is made out of old tires. The outdoor pants which will be available in stores from March 2022, does not only stands out due to its timeless design, robust material and simple reparability – the pants are also sustainable, as chemically recycled scrap tires are used as a raw material. With this innovation, BASF and VAUDE seek to make a contribution towards reducing waste and preserving valuable resources.

“Our Ultramid^® Ccycled™ is an innovative polyamide 6 that can be used to manufacture high-quality textiles. During production, we save fossil-based raw materials while also offering our customers a reduced carbon footprint,” stated Christoph Gahn, Vice President Business Management Polyamides at BASF. René Bethmann, Innovation Manager at VAUDE, added: “We want to be a pioneer in building up a circular economy for our functional clothing. Our goal is to make a measurable contribution for the environment. This clearly includes reducing the amount of primary fossil resources used, as well as cutting down on the CO₂ emitted when making our products. By using Ultramid^® Ccycled^TM, we can reduce the carbon footprint by more than half*.”

BASF feeds pyrolysis oil from old tires into its production Verbund in Ludwigshafen, and in doing so partially replaces fossil resources. The share of recycled raw material is assigned to certain products manufactured in the Verbund using a certified mass balance approach. As products with “Ccycled^TM” in their name have exactly the same properties as the equivalents made from fossil raw materials, customers can process them in the same manner and use them in their conventional processes. Accordingly, Ultramid^® Ccycled^TM can also be used in applications with high quality and performance requirements, such as in the textile industry.

* based on the HIGG Material Sustainability Index

About Ultramid^® Ccycled^TM

BASF is breaking new ground in the recycling of old tires with the ChemCycling^TM project. The chemical recycling process uses old tires and primarily plastic waste that was previously used for energy recovery or simply thrown away, such as consumer plastics removed during the recycling process. In a thermochemical process, basic chemicals are extracted from these plastics and are fed to the BASF Verbund as a raw material. Applying a mass balance approach, these chemicals can be assigned to certain products manufactured in the Verbund such as our Ultramid^® Ccycled™ products. This replaces and saves fossil resources. Here you find more about ChemCycling™ from BASF.

About BASF

BASF stands for chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. More than 110,000 employees in the BASF Group contribute to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of €59 billion in 2020. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the United States. Further information can be found at www.basf.com.

About VAUDE

As a sustainable and innovative supplier of outdoor apparel, VAUDE contributes to a livable world – so that future generations can also enjoy the natural world with a clean conscience. The family company is committed to high environmental and social standards along its entire global supply chain, with its holistic sustainability strategy forming an essential part of every company division. Every year, VAUDE publishes a Sustainability Report based on the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and regularly undergoes external certification. The company has been working with the strict bluesign^® SYSTEM environmental standard, which monitors the entire textile value chain, since 2001. VAUDE’s environmental management system is certified according to the EU’s EMAS instrument. The company headquarters in Tettnang and all products manufactured there are 100 percent climate-neutral; moreover, VAUDE attaches great importance to making some of its products at its location in southern Germany and expanding its “Made in Germany” production. In order to make its global production climate-neutral, the company has set itself ambitious science-based targets (SBT) – the ultimate aim being to play its part in limiting global warming to the maximum of 1.5°C set by the Paris Agreement. Further information can be found at www.vaude.com

Media contact:

Nina Osten
Communications Monomers Division
+49 621 60 20509
+49 152 54874615

SOURCE: BASF SE