Life re-Winter

End-of-life ski equipment: a sustainability challenge

Every year, 4.8 million skis and 3.5 million ski boots are produced in Europe. Yet after roughly 150 days of use, this equipment already needs to be replaced.

Their complex multi-material composition and the lack of suitable technological solutions make recycling difficult. As a result, most end-of-life equipment ends up in landfills or incinerators, without the chance to recover materials for new products.

It is urgent to find innovative solutions to transform the linear lifecycle of ski equipment into a circular and sustainable model.

An innovative approach to end-of-life ski equipment

The project tackles the challenge of ski equipment at the end of its life with a circular, high-quality model that recovers and reuses materials without compromising performance:

• Collecting post-consumer skis, boots, and bindings directly from rental shops.
• Separating materials (polymers, wood, etc.) using advanced techniques such as selective dissolution and mechanical recycling.
• Recovering core materials while preserving their quality.
• Reintegrating materials into the production of new equipment, while maintaining the same performance standards.

The value generated by the project

The LIFE re-WINTER project plans to collect 10,000 pairs of skis, 10,000 pairs of bindings, and 10,000 pairs of boots from at least 30 rental shops. Skis will be processed to recover ABS, TPU, PE, wood, and metals, while boots and bindings will be separated using advanced systems to obtain pure, recyclable materials.

Using these recovered materials, new products will be manufactured following a design-for-recycling approach:

• Boots: 80-100% recycled plastic
• Bindings: 20-60% post-consumer materials
• Skis: 100% recycled wood cores
• Sidewalls: 95% ABS
• Topsheets: 80% TPU/ABS

All new products will be designed for disassembly, repairable, and designed for multiple recycling cycles, featuring digital packaging and NFC-enabled Digital Product Passports.