What is CETIA?
CETIA is an innovation platform dedicated to the recyclability of textile and leather articles. It develops cutting-edge solutions to transform these items into recyclable material resources. By leveraging automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, CETIA builds efficient systems that make recycling operations competitive. The platform supports brands, collectors, sorters, and recyclers in designing and deploying innovative solutions to bring their textile and leather recovery projects to life. The ultimate goal? To boost the volume of recycled raw materials, help the textile industry access these resources, reduce waste, and speed up the creation of new recycling value chains.
Main Benefits and Key Figures
CETIA’s approach brings some impressive benefits to the table:
- Development of pilot systems that automatically separate shoe outer soles from uppers.
- Creation of intelligent, automated systems to separate fabrics from trims like buttons and zippers on garments.
- Sorting textiles by composition and color at a rate of 1 garment per second using FIBERSORT technology.
- Mechanical isolation of fibers from garments at 600 kg/hour with advanced de-layering equipment.
- Automatic separation and sorting of shoe soles, handling up to 120 shoes per hour, including glued, sewn, injected, and vulcanized soles.
Prototyping Innovation
At its core, CETIA is about pushing boundaries. The platform helps overcome technological barriers by developing proofs of concept and designing intelligent solutions. This phase is crucial for testing ideas and ensuring that innovations are not just theoretical but practical and scalable. It’s where creativity meets real-world application, setting the stage for industrial feasibility.
Demonstrating Industrial Feasibility
Once prototypes are ready, CETIA moves on to studying technical feasibility at an industrial scale. This means developing pilot lines and launching pre-series to validate that the solutions can work efficiently in real production environments. It’s a vital step to ensure that innovations can be deployed beyond the lab and into actual recycling operations.
Transferring Solutions to Client Sites
Innovation doesn’t stop at development. CETIA focuses on deploying technological solutions directly to client sites, transferring professional skills, and facilitating the establishment of industrial sites in various territories. This hands-on approach ensures that the technology is not only available but also effectively integrated into existing recycling ecosystems.
Project Impact on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure – fostering innovation in recycling technologies.
- SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production – promoting sustainable management of textile and leather waste.
- SDG 13: Climate Action – reducing waste and supporting circular economy practices to lower environmental impact.
- SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals – collaborating with engineering schools, regional authorities, and industry partners.
Focus Areas and Equipment
CETIA’s work spans several critical focus areas: identification, dismantling, detection, sorting, and material preparation. Identification helps establish the product’s identity to direct it to the right dismantling process. Dismantling involves breaking down products to separate materials for recycling. Detection determines the composition and color of material resources, while sorting automatically orients resources by these factors. Finally, material preparation makes resources suitable for processing by recovery centers.
Since 2023, CETIA’s first equipment has been accessible in Hendaye, France, housed in a 1200 m² building dedicated entirely to innovative solutions for preparing textile and leather items. This includes advanced sorting machines like the FIBERSORT from VALVAN, de-layering systems from DELL’ORCO Y VILLANI, and proprietary shoe sole separating systems developed by CETIA itself. These technologies work together to streamline recycling processes and increase efficiency across the board.
