Italian startups and companies are studying production models that reuse offcuts and industrial waste, particularly food waste. Garofalo's eco-friendly straw is one example.
The shift from a linear economy (produce, consume, discard) to a circular economy in which industrial waste is reintroduced into the production cycle has become a necessity for achieving carbon neutrality. And a growing number of startups, in Italy too, are developing projects that seek to give new life to offcuts and waste from industrial production processes, particularly in the food sector. In this way, what was once a disposal cost generates new economic resources and places no burden on the environment.
One example of the circular economy is offered by OrangeFiber, a company from Catania that uses citrus by-products to manufacture fabrics. The young entrepreneur behind the idea is Adriana Santanocito. Working alongside fellow Sicilian Enrica Arena (a graduate in International Development Cooperation and in Communication), she patented the process first in Italy in 2013 and then internationally in 2014, in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milan.
In 2015, the first pilot plant in Sicily was inaugurated, enabling OrangeFiber to enter the market.
The first stage of transforming citrus waste takes place in Sicily: cellulose is extracted from the citrus fruit and then sent to Spain to be spun into yarn. The yarn then returns to Italy, where it is worked by a weaving mill in the Como area together with silk and cotton to produce a satin and a poplin. The company's product range also includes a 100 per cent OrangeFiber fabric, similar to viscose.
In the food sector, whereas until recently waste was predominantly destined for the production of fertilisers, fuel or animal feed, the focus is now shifting towards the reuse of edible parts in new food products or the extraction of high-value ingredients from waste.
The HiLife project, for instance — a collaboration between the universities of Salerno and Messina and several local food companies — focuses on recovering and reusing active compounds from food processing waste across three supply chains (olive oil, dairy and citrus) in order to incorporate them into health-oriented products such as functional foods and nutraceuticals. In food processing waste, in other words, many natural active compounds remain that can be extracted to enrich cosmetic creams and oils or fortified foods and nutraceuticals, without drawing on new raw materials.
Even well-established companies are exploring new ways to avoid consuming virgin resources. The Crush papers conceived by the paper mill Favini move in this direction: as far back as 1992, the company had created Shiro alga carta, made from invasive algae found in the Venice lagoon. Building on this first project, Favini's research has produced Crush papers manufactured from maize waste, lentil waste (in collaboration with the cereal company Pedon) and even, with the new Refit paper, from wool and cotton by-products.
Pasta Garofalo is no exception: in 2015, at the very start of the debate on plastic, the company devised an alternative to straws — objects with a significant environmental impact (2 billion are used every year in Italy) that are difficult to dispose of (they take around 500 years to break down completely).
That is how pasta straws were born. In designing them, no existing pasta formats suited to this use — such as ziti or mezzani — were repurposed, so as not to generate food waste. Instead, the quota of pasta that is naturally set aside during processing was used. Rather than discarding it, Garofalo came up with the idea of re-milling it to produce the straws.
To further reduce waste and optimise resources, bars and restaurants are supplied with a recycled cardboard box in which to collect used straws, which are then sent back to the production facility, where they are used to generate biogas.