We realized early that instead of producing new plastic, we wanted to make our products from recycled plastic waste. So a few years back, we set out to make that happen.
You might think; why did it take so long? Isn’t there a lot of stuff made from recycled plastic already?
The answer is that recycled plastic is tricky to use when making headphones. For one thing, the material needs to be flexible enough to be molded into tiny, very complex designs and shapes. Secondly, it has to be durable.
Headphones contain electronic components that generate heat, which means that the material has to be strong enough to handle the temperature changes. So all in all, we needed to create a custom recycled plastic material that could tick all these boxes.
We eventually found a GRS-certified partner that wanted to take on this challenge with us. After years of hard work, trials, and errors, we can finally reveal the results: a headphone-friendly plastic made from 100% recycled plastic waste.
As this journey has made us really nerdy about plastic, allow us to share three nitty-gritty facts on it:
- It is a PC/ABS plastic that can be colored and molded and is optimized for making consumer electronics – like headphones.
- It is made from 100% post-consumer products, such as air conditioners and water bottles.
- Recycled plastic products often come in dark colors, as the recycled material is hard to sort by color. But thanks to our recycling partner, who can carefully sort the materials in the recycling process, we can create recycled plastic products in a rainbow of clear and bright colors.
What is in the making?
The first product made with our recycled plastic will be introduced this spring. We can hardly wait.
Want to know more about our recycled plastic adventures?
Check out the interview with our two Emelies: “Pushing the Limit of Recycled Materials.”
