Why textile recycling in car seats requires collective action
Recycling car seat textiles isn’t a straightforward task—it’s a puzzle of materials, processes, and trade-offs. Our Sustainability Manager Johan Andersson shares his experiences and lessons from working with recycled fabrics. His reflections show that meaningful change doesn’t come from one company acting alone, but from collective effort, shared learning, and the courage to begin—even when the solutions aren’t perfect.
The complexity of recycling textile materials
Most car seats you’ll see today use polyester for the fabric. On the surface, polyester is practical—durable, resistant to stains, relatively affordable, and easy to clean. But the reality is more complicated. The fabric isn’t just polyester; it is laminated together with polyurethane foam, the same type of foam that is used in sofas and beds, joined together to provide comfort and structure. This construction, though familiar and reliable, makes recycling difficult. When different materials are tightly bonded together, separating them at the end of the product’s life is a real challenge. That is a detail we didn’t fully appreciate at first, but I now realize that it sits at the heart of why recycling these products is so hard.
If you were to take apart one of our covers, you’d find a surprising variety of materials—padding of different kinds, buttons, zippers, non-woven technical layers, decals. Each was chosen for a reason, whether for comfort, appearance, safety, or practical reasons. But as I’ve learned, every additional material is also a new complication for recycling. It is challenging to create a cover adapted for circularity when each component comes with its own set of challenges for separation and reuse.
From bottles to fabric—and why it’s not the full solution
We source much of our fabric from recycled PET bottles. Actually, we use recycled polyester for all our main products, not just in special edition product versions. At first glance, this seems like a win-win, using waste as a resource and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. But there are justified criticisms of this choice. One of the main concerns is what happens to the original recycling loop for bottles. By diverting PET from bottles into textiles, we take material out of a system where it is turned back into new bottles. The food industry, especially bottle manufacturers, needs to use more newly produced fossil-based materials to make up the shortfall. In a way, our solution shifts the problem rather than truly solving it.
What would be ideal is if all the polyester we used could come from old textiles—textile-to-textile recycling. That would close the loop and keep materials in the same product category. But the reality is that this isn’t yet possible on any meaningful scale.
One company cannot solve a system challenge
This leads to a broader reflection on the challenges of making real change as a single company. When we talk about improving sustainability, it is tempting to imagine that one determined company can set up its own closed-loop system—collecting, sorting, reprocessing old covers into new ones. In practice, this turns out to be very difficult. We lack the resources and the volume to establish such a system on our own. There are very few examples of companies in our industry doing this successfully. Instead, progress often comes from the industry as a collective. The PET bottle recycling system is a good example where time, collaboration, and investment has lead to a well functioning system. Building similar systems for textile-to-textile recycling will take the same kind of collective effort, and that is a long road.
Small steps that build bigger change
Alongside these technical challenges, we have to think about why we make the choices we do. For us, using recycled textiles is not a perfect solution, but it is a conscious decision. Starting somewhere is important, even if the impact is small at first. By contributing to the demand for recycled textiles, we hope to encourage the development of better recycling systems for textiles.
We try to reduce emissions wherever we can, knowing that the fabric is only a small part of our total carbon footprint. We estimate that we reduce about 1% of our total emissions by using recycled polyester, however, these figures should only be seen as an indication as we need updated EPDs to verify the data. But you get a sense of the scale. Still, every reduction matters, and small actions do add up over time.
The most important reason for sticking with recycled raw materials, though, is to send a signal. We want to show—to ourselves as much as to others—that it is possible, and necessary, to shift away from oil-based materials. Only by making this shift on a large scale can we hope to reduce emissions in a significant way. I hope that, over time, our efforts will contribute to a broader movement. I want our choices to have a ripple effect: not to solve everything ourselves, but to encourage others to join in, so that together we can build new systems and solutions.
Lessons along the way—and the value of sharing them
When I look back on this process, I realize that every step forward comes with new challenges, but also with new understanding. If there is one thing I wish more people in our field would recognize, it is that real change rarely comes from individuals working alone. Change comes from sharing what works, being honest about what doesn’t, and finding ways to move forward—together.
Johan Andersson
Sustainability Manager, Axkid
