Freitag develops circular tarp for trucks

Zurich design company Freitag is working with various industrial partners to develop a truck tarpaulin that can be reverted to its basic building blocks after. Like a conventional tarpaulin, the new circular version will consist of a robust fabric with a water and dirt-repellent coating, as Freitag explained in a press release. The very first prototype is now into its first round of testing by being mounted on a small truck.

It is made from a material already developed by a Dutch company, Rivertex, with fabric and coating made of polypropylene. Test drives will show how well the material holds up as a truck tarp, come sun, wind or acid rain. Four further promising sub-projects for a circular truck tarp are currently on the table. Specifically, they are working on a tarpaulin made of PET, of bio-based synthetic fibers with a coating of starch-based plastics and with a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) coating.

At this point, Freitag says it is impossible to predict which will one day result in the first commercial, circular truck tarp. “While higher circularity may speak for one development approach, a lower material price may be the main argument for another,” explains Anna Blattert, Circular Technologist at Freitag. One thing is certain: one day, the tarps will be used to make the Zurich design company’s unique bags. Even after a long second life as a bag, the material will be broken down into basic constituents and “used again to create new items”.