From bottle to stone. Recyclable engineered stone for kitchen countertops.

Project Information

SUSTONABLE

Grant agreement ID: 880227

DOI

10.3030/880227

Project closed

EC signature date 22 January 2020

Start date 15 November 2019

End date 14 November 2021

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 3 089 655,00

EU contribution

€ 2 162 758,50

Coordinated by

INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES STONE BV
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SUSTONABLE (From bottle to stone. Recyclable engineered stone for kitchen countertops.)

Reporting period: 2020-11-15 to 2021-11-14

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SUSTONABLE is the new revolutionary sustainable, thin and ultra-lightweight surface made with a unique combination of quartz and recycled PET plastic. The end product weighs 1/3 of current composite stone while using only 20% of the raw materials. In recent 30 years, composite stone has been replacing natural stone in the kitchen. It is a fast-growing segment with 400M m2 countertops sold worldwide and will continue to gain share from less desirable materials such as High-Pressure Laminate (HPL) worktops, which still represents 50% of the market as the cheapest option.
We at INNSTECH have pioneered the way to use recycled PET from plastic bottles and create a thin composite stonelike material that is recyclable with a very efficient process, and still having the desired look, feel and properties of current composite stone.
Plastic waste is a huge problem and society needs to be more conscious about it.
This purpose leads INNSTECH to create the only truly circular design surface made by recycled plastic and natural stone. SUSTONABLE repurposes plastic that has been thrown away into something useful and perdurable. Construction and demolition waste comprise the largest waste stream in the EU. SUSTONABLE protects the exhaustion of natural resources eliminating the need for natural stone by 80%.
The mission of INNSTECH is to run a marathon against plastics where every m² means 100 bottles less of plastics ending up in the environment. We recycle 100 PET plastic bottles for every m2 of surface created.
The purpose of the project was to develop a product that meets all the requirements for the kitchen countertop market and to industrialize the process to develop the SUSTONABLE product. During the project, it became clear that in the market of kitchen countertops the B2B customers set different requirements and use their specific testing methodology. Currently, the SUSTONABLE product does not fully meet the engineered stone requirements yet, but it is accepted on all requirements in the market as a kitchen worktop by the Danish kitchen countertop fabricator DFI Geisler, part of a Swedish kitchen group. With Dekker Zevenhuizen, Dutch fabricator of kitchen countertops, it is now being discussed to position the current SUSTONABLE product with a different sub-brand in the market, while continuing to develop the product to the engineered stone level requirements.
The process is now commercially ready. The capacity and efficiency of the factory needs to be improved, but the first recycling test carried out in the factory with cutting and polishing waste prove to be successful.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the project period from 15th November 2020 to 14th November 2021, work has been performed on:
• The commissioning and operational start-up of the core production line, definition, design and purchase of equipment for surface hardening, quality improvement and printing, supply chain development, set-up of a quality control system (WP1)
• The commissioning and operational start-up of the eddy current separator and metal detector, the PET dryer and the sublimation press and printer (WP1)
• Trial production for 10,000 m2 (WP1)
• Optimization of core product in the lab (WP2)
• Quality standards, CE label, market validation (WP3)
• Exploitation plan, sales task force, production economics (WP4)
• Marketing, and Communication and Dissemination actions (WP5)
• Project management activities (WP6)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The SUSTONABLE product is attracting the interest of community of potential customers, designers, architects, large international retail companies and stakeholders of the kitchen sector, social housing, bathroom sector and retailers in general, making its high potential socio-economic impact on the wider community clear.
Thanks to the revolutionary sustainable product, INNSTECH participated in several expositions:
• The World Expo of solutions for the planet ChangeNOW(March 2021) at the Grand Palais Ephemere.
• The (online) Dutch Design Week (October 2020)..
• Pre-selection for the Green product Award. that distinguishes globally sustainable, innovative products and services on the market, and for the EIC Greenathon 2020, an ideation hackathon that digitally connects innovators funded by the EIC part of the European Green Deal.
• VIRTUe project: a multidisciplinary, international team from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TUe) is participating in the Solar Decathlon Europe 21 (SDE 21) with its energy-efficient and sustainable house on the TUe campus. The house, built with sustainable and circular materials and practices, selected SUSTONABLE for the kitchen worktop.
• Architects @ work Norway (September 2021): SUSTONABLE was featured in "Beautiful waste", the name of the exhibition curated by ARCHITECT@WORK Norway and MaterialDriven.

The SUSTONABLE product has been selected in 17 major material databases:
• Material District, World's leading platform in the field of innovative materials- empowering innovation by match-making material needs with material solutions.
• Material Connexion, a physical materials library in New York and libraries in Bangkok, Bilbao, Daegu, Milan, Skövde, Tokyo.
• Circular Design: a creative design studio with the goal to empower products with circular design principles.
• Material Driven: interface between makers and manufacturers of innovative, sustainable materials and their strategic applications, located in London, Dallas and Bilbao.
• MATCOAM: a material library located in Madrid, with 700m2 of exhibition space with more than 1,000 materials, promoting the latest trends in materials and innovation.
• MATERFAD: the Centre of Materials of Barcelona, created and promoted by the FAD (Promotion of design), acting as an observatory of the future, conducting research for innovation, sustainability and creativity through materials.
• Colab Digital: a global digital materials library being launched to enable specifiers to learn about new materials and connect with suppliers.
• Elisava materials: the material library of Faculty of Design and Engineering of the University of Vic, Cataluña.
• Future proof community: the online platform of MVO Nederland, to get in touch with other businesses in relation to sustainability, where the SUSTONABLE material is promoted.
• Brain of materials: a German digital library that presents different materials through high-definition photos and 3D material scans.
• Matalog: an open access material library that houses the profiles of materials used by architects, builders, designers, makers, artists and artisans around the world.
• Materio: a digital and physical library located in France (Paris) and Czech Republic (Prague) with a fully independent watch service on all kinds of material innovation.
• Matter of stuff: a furniture procurement and manufacturing consultancy that provides a new approach to curating knowledge, network and crafts to transform impossible dreams into materiality.
• Ubuntoo: an environmental solutions platform connecting changemakers around the world in an effort to shape the industry today by achieving the sustainable change of tomorrow.
• Material lab: a collaborative research centre dedicated to advance the study of materials at Pratt Institute in USA (New York).
• Archello: an online platform that shows products, stories and involved professionals behind architectural projects.
• Mat lab: a green material library from USA filled with various types of sustainable materials

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