igus promotes circular economy with world's first cable caterpillar made entirely of recycled materials

Saving resources and extending the product life cycle - that's the goal igus is pursuing with the new E2.1.CG cradle-to-cradle cable caterpillar

Cradle-to-cradle: this is the principle of the circular economy, which starts from nature. The goal: to return consumer goods to the biological or technical cycle in order to preserve valuable resources and raw materials. The motion plastics specialist igus also pursues this goal and has now developed the world's first cable bead made of recycled material based on its own "chainge" cable bead recycling program.

From extreme weather events and natural disasters to marine pollution, the climate crisis is getting worse and more and more people are becoming aware of it. "Even our customers' purchasing decisions are increasingly determined by ecological considerations. This is why we have put a lot of energy into product development in order to produce more efficiently with resources - without sacrificing product quality," explains Jörg Ottersbach, Head of the igus Cable Crawler Business Unit. The result: the E2.1.CG cradle cable bead - a complete range of cable beads made from the new igumid CG material. Numerous tests in our own test laboratory show that the new cable caterpillar has almost the same technical properties and load limits as a cable caterpillar made from the standard igumid G material. Another advantage is that the cradel cable bead is available at the same price as cable beads made from the standard material. The new range is available from stock in five series and 28 cable caterpillar types.

From discarded cable reel to recycled material

Among other things, the cradle-to-cradle cable caterpillar uses recycled material from the "chainge" recycling program. As part of this program, igus has been collecting used cable caterpillars from customers since 2019 so that they do not end up as industrial waste. This service is offered for both igus cable tracks and cable tracks from other manufacturers. So far, more than 32 tons of material have been collected in 13 countries. By 2022, igus has set itself the goal of increasing this total to 500 tons. Waste material is sorted by type, cleaned and processed to new quality. This is made possible with the help of chemical analysis and formula tuning - a process in which the material is optimized for the desired properties, thereby enabling consistent product quality. The post-consumer material igumid CG is then used to produce the recycled cable bead without loss of quality in terms of wear behavior, stability or bending fatigue.

Sustainable resource cycle - with 28% less CO2

With the new cable bead product range made of recycled material, igus is making a further contribution to conserving resources and promoting the circular economy. According to the environmental product statement, this sustainable resource cycle also reduces CO2 emissions by 28%. Jörg Ottersbach says: "The focus should not only be on the first use of products, but also on the reuse of raw materials. We see a lot of 'cradle-to-cradle' potential and strive to reprocess as many raw materials and end-of-life products as possible, so that valuable raw materials do not become waste, but are used sensibly for as long as possible."