Fully Recyclable Zipper

Circular Jacket Challenge · Challenge partner: Anthea (IT)

How might we design a fully recyclable zipper that keeps a mono-material polyester jacket recyclable without compromising alpine performance?

Anthea’s reversible outdoor jacket is made entirely from recycled and recyclable polyester. Every component is mono-material — except one. The zipper is the last barrier.

From raw materials to a new market

Anthea is a B2B raw materials and yarn company founded in 1991 in Biella, one of Europe’s most important textile districts. Their range covers 100% polyester yarns, high-tenacity nylon, stretch and corespun yarns, and blends with technical fibres.

The market for traditional raw materials has been shrinking for two decades, so Anthea is moving into outdoor sports with a new product: a double-face reversible jacket made entirely from recycled and recyclable polyester. It exists as a working prototype — recycled polyester sewing threads, printed instead of sewn labels, components designed to come apart at end of life.

The last barrier

No fully recyclable zipper made from 100% polyester exists on the market today. Conventional zippers mix materials — metal sliders, virgin polyester tape, different polymers for the teeth — which makes mono-material recycling impossible, and metal parts damage recycling machinery. Velcro was considered and ruled out: it fails after six to twelve months of intense alpine use.

The timing matters. The EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will set recyclability requirements for textiles and require a Digital Product Passport, and separate collection of textile waste has been mandatory across the EU since January 2025. A brand that can already prove a garment is genuinely recyclable is ahead of a wave the rest of the industry is about to meet.

Thin margins, real constraints

The jacket is priced to compete with Asian-manufactured alternatives — a target of €85 to €95 for the first trial order, which leaves almost no room in the unit cost. Reprocessed polyester fibre costs roughly three times more than virgin material, and Italian energy costs are above the EU average. A recyclable zipper cannot be a premium add-on; it has to work inside the existing cost structure.

Production runs in minimum batches of 100 units through a local supply chain in and around Biella, chosen deliberately to keep transport emissions and lead times down. The strategic direction is a shift from fast fashion to garments with a three- to five-year life.

What we are looking for

Two directions are equally valid: put recycled material into the zipper, or design the zipper so it can be recycled together with the jacket — ideally both.

Three constraints are non-negotiable. The zipper must survive alpine conditions: cold, wet, wind, years of repeated use. It must need no additional cutting or finishing steps when it goes into the garment. And because the jacket is reversible, the closure has to work and look finished from both sides — which rules out most conventional constructions before the material question even comes up.

We are looking for concrete, feasible proposals — a zipper concept, a supplier connection, a cost model, a partnership strategy. Not slide decks with abstract principles.

Find your angle

What would a 100% polyester zipper look like?

Can teeth, tape and slider come from the same polymer family? Which zipper manufacturers or textile engineers are already working on mono-material solutions? And what does Anthea’s own recycled polyester yarn make possible that virgin material does not?

A closure that works from both sides

A reversible jacket has no hidden face. What does that mean for the slider, for the tape, and for the way the closure is attached — without adding a single finishing step on the sewing floor?

Could something beat the zipper?

Anthea looked and came back to the zipper — velcro failed on durability, nothing else matched it for a garment meant to last years. But they would rather be proven wrong than stop looking. If magnetic closures, snap systems or interlocking textile structures survive alpine use, make the case.

Who buys the first run?

Minimum order quantities block a product with no proven demand. How do Anthea and a brand partner de-risk the first production run — and what kind of outdoor or sports brand would co-develop a recyclable zipper in the first place?

The prize

Part of the Circular Jacket Challenge, 26–27 November 2026 — a two-day Innovation Sprint under the Interreg Alpine Space project ASTER, powered by InnoDays.