Start-up Solostücke launches sustainable marketplace for leftover materials

Via the Circular Flow platform, companies and consumers can buy and sell existing raw materials. The start-up wants to prevent unnecessary new production, which would release a lot of climate-damaging CO2.

In Germany, up to 100,000 tons of textile waste are incinerated every year. The Wiesbaden-based start-up Solostücke has declared war on this state of affairs. According to the company, Circular Flow is the first German marketplace for recyclable production materials. By using existing raw materials and eliminating textile waste, the start-up aims to prevent CO2 emissions. All of this is intended to support a circular economy and conserve resources. The platform also wants to calculate the ecological impact of the reused raw materials.

Among buyers and sellers of leftover materials, which should be in high-quality condition, the start-up Solostücke wants to arrange suitable matches. This is intended to enable the procurement of recyclable textiles, residual materials, production additives as well as recyclates (granulate that is created after recylcing). Anyone who also has unused raw materials should be able to find a buyer in this way. By recording all transactions on the platform, the company wants to calculate how big the positive impact of the transactions on the platform is. One way to measure this is to calculate the CO2 emissions saved.

The idea grew out of the startup Solostücke, which Svenja Bickert-Appleby founded in 2017. Eva Cahill and Salma Akli joined in 2021. Solostücke sells sweaters and hoodies made from leftover fabrics that have been rescued from disposal. The company calls the garments "circularly designed." The fashion brand's collections can be recycled, and the company handles take-back and recycling. Customers can also view supply chain, environmental impact and return information via a QR code in the product.

In the long term, Solostücke would like to see the emergence of a recyclable textile material system throughout Germany and Europe. An important keyword in this context is that of "pre-consumer waste". This describes unused material surpluses from textile production that would actually be thrown in the garbage. If this material is recycled, a lot of CO2 can be saved, say the founders. Producing 1,000 meters of cotton fabric releases about 9,810 kilograms of the gas that fuels climate change, they say. If, on the one hand, this amount of cotton is burned without being used and, at the same time, the same amount is newly produced somewhere else, this results in about 19,670 kilograms of CO2.