After a year and a half of research and development, Swiss designer Winter & Company is launching a plastic for book covers made from ocean plastic waste. Called Toile Ocean, the material is a woven fabric made entirely of recycled PET (rPET) and coated with a water-based coating. The plastic is 55% ocean plastic waste.
Because of its strength and sewability, Toile Ocean is intended for multiple application possibilities, such as book covers, labels, high-end packaging, bags, stationery and menu cards, says its manufacturer. The new recycled material comes in six colors, from 180 g/m 2 or 0.25 mm thick. It can be printed in offset and silk-screen printing and finished with hot stamping.
How Ocean Canvas is made
To create this canvas, Winter & Company partnered with Swiss company tide ocean. Founded in 2019, this young company collects and sorts plastic waste on the coasts of Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.
"The plastic waste is collected locally by local employees, including many fishermen, under fair conditions and transported to Switzerland in a CO2-neutral way." says Winter & Compan.
This plastic is then granulated and spun. This yarn is used as weft yarn for Toile Ocean, while the warp yarn (which supports the weft) is made from recycled polyester.
The reverse side of the canvas is coated with a water-based acrylic coating without additional paper.
Founded in 1892, Winter & Company introduced many new materials such as the synthetic leather-like coating used for Skivertex book covers and bindings in 1967, or Ecorel, a more environmentally friendly alternative to PVC, in 1991, or around the same time, Wintan, a material made from recycled leather and used for book covers.
