Winter Sports Equipment Recycling Made in Austria
In the past five years, around 1.8 million pairs of skis and ski boots, 2.3 million pairs of ski poles, and 1.4 million ski helmets have been sold in Austria - sports equipment that, until now, has typically ended up as waste at the end of its life cycle, even though valuable raw materials could be recovered from them through recycling. That’s why the cross-company cooperation project WINTRUST was launched last year, initiated by the ecoplus Kunststoff-Cluster in Lower Austria.
The main goals of the project, which is funded by the Province of Lower Austria and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), are to establish an appropriate collection system and to analyze and evaluate processing options for used winter sports equipment in order to return as high a proportion of valuable materials as possible back into the cycle. Between October 1, 2024, and April 14, 2025, a total of 19.41 tons of used items have already been collected.
The project will run until the end of 2026. Project partners include various winter sports equipment manufacturers, suppliers (including Isosport), sporting goods retailers, and relevant industry associations. Research partners are the Montanuniversität Leoben and the Transfercenter für Kunststofftechnik (TCKT). Participants are divided into three working groups based on their roles: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Collection/Separation/Processing, and Public Relations.
The third project meeting took place in early June at Head/Tyrolia in Schwechat. During extended working sessions, the different groups collaboratively developed concrete steps to achieve the project goals and plan the next phases.