Dalbello, the Italian ski boot manufacturer that is part of the K2-Marker-Dalbello-Völkl group (K2-MDV), has been a partner since last September of the Life Reskiboot project, co-funded by the European Commission, which aims to takle the problem of plastic waste management with a new paradigm applied to ski boot construction in cooperation with six other partners. The project team aims to develop, produce, and launch new high-quality and cost-competitive ski boots using 90 percent recycled materials. This will drastically reduce the amounts of plastic waste sent to landfills.
As a partner, Dalbello mainly advises on optimizing the production processes and the development of recycled ski boots. The circular economy system of plastics, which maps the entire product life cycle, includes a take-back and reuse system from rental businesses for sorting and recycling multi-plastic components. At the end of the project stage, one thousand pairs of adult ski boots are to be manufactured from recycled soft and hard multi-plastics in-house by Dalbello, and tested for comfort and technical performance.
The implementation of Life Reskiboot is based on the cooperation of seven partners from different sectors across Europe. Until February 29, 2024, Grifone (Bulgaria) and The European Platform for Sport Innovation (EPSI, Belgium), as well as Italy-based Dalbello, Plastic Sort, Rent a Sport Italia, Studio Fieschi e soci and the University of Bologna (DICAM) will implement a new model of circular plastic economy over the full product lifecycle. The total project budget is set at €2,819,037, with the European Commission funding 55 percent of the amount.
Other project goals include eliminating manufacturing waste and developing guidelines for the production of ski boots that are designed to make the material more efficient to separate, making the recycling process easier and minimizing the operations needed. The partners also predict that the final cost of ski boots can be reduced at least by 7 percent due to the use of less virgin raw material.
In 2027, three years after the project ends, the project team expects to have 13,500 pairs of recycled ski boots commercialized, with potential environmental benefits due to the reduction in resource use, generated waste, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Due to the sorting and recycling of ski-boot components, a reduction of around 36,320 kg of waste sent to disposal is expected by 2027. Some 130 tons of GHG emissions, expressed in CO² equivalent, should be avoided by producing equivalent virgin materials. Finally, about 3,716 gigajoules of oil and natural gas can be saved, which would have been required as feedstock and fuels to produce virgin raw materials.
Dalbello is not the only player in the industry working on circular economy solutions for ski boots. In February, Tecnica had announced the launch of its ski boot recycling project, named “Recycle your Boots,” in collaboration with the University of Padua.
