igus advances the circular economy with the world’s first e-chain made entirely of recycled material

In what it calls a world’s first, igus, the Germany-based manufacturer of motion plastics and moving cable management systems, has manufactured a cable carrier system made entirely from recycled material.

The company’s new E2.1.CG cradle-chain is a complete range of e-chains made from the new igumid CG material, and is available from stock in five series and 28 chain types.

The cradle-chain uses, among other things, recycled material from the “chainge” recycling program. As part of this program, igus has been collecting used energy chains from customers since 2019, so they don’t end up in industrial waste. This service is offered for both igus e-chains and chains from other manufacturers. So far, more than 32 tons of material have been collected across 13 countries, igus officials said in a June 10 news release. For 2022, igus has set its goal to increase this total to 500 tons.

Scrap material is sorted by type, cleaned, and processed to new quality. The post-consumer material igumid CG is then used to make the recycled cradle-chain — without any loss of quality in terms of wear behaviour, stability, or bending fatigue, igus said.

With the new e-chain product range made of recycled material, igus is making a further contribution to conserving resources and advancing the circular economy. According to the Environment Product Declaration, this sustainable raw material cycle also reduces CO₂ emissions by 28 per cent.

Jörg Ottersbach says, “The focus should not be only on first use of products, but also the reuse of raw materials,” Jörg Ottersbach, head of the igus e-chains business unit, said. “We see a lot of ‘cradle-to-cradle’ potential and strive to reprocess as many raw materials and discarded products as possible so that precious resources are not wasted but used wisely for as long as possible.”