BioCir Slides: The Full Story

Setting the standard for compostable and biodegradable plastics for a cleaner planet, we have created BioCir™, the first durable, flexible, and comfortable alternative to plastics in the fashion industry. In order to prove the full, circular model of products made from our BioCir™ material, Balena developed the BioCir™ Slides. The first product made entirely of BioCir™, designed and manufactured in Italy and launched and quickly sold out in Tel Aviv in the summer of 2022. The BioCir™ Slides – colored and scented using natural cinnamon – are being worn by fans of fashion and comfort throughout the city, pledging themselves to a greener future.

Through the development and creation of this first product, we were able to demonstrate the fully functional lifecycle of our material, from development to manufacturing to usage, to end-of-life in an industrial compost facility, done on a local, smart scale that could easily be scaled and duplicated to anywhere in the world.

Take-Back Program:

Through our take-back program, BioCir™ Slides are simply dropped off after use at one of our take-back locations around the city. The slides are then composted in one of our industrial compost facilities ensuring the full decomposition and biodegradation of the material to the ground safely, and by that completing a fully circular process. Through this proof-of-concept, we were able to show all the benefits and unique properties of our advanced, fully operational material that can serve different purposes for various companies looking for sustainable and durable solutions.

By reimagining and redesigning materials, Balena is ensuring the sustainable production of materials used in the fashion industry. The global biodegradable plastic market size was estimated at USD 4.1 billion in 2021, and is expected to expand at a rate of 9.7%. We aim to become the leading material science company for biomaterial solutions, reinventing products, services, complex supply chains, and entire industries. While we have started with the development of sustainable alternatives to thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), we aim to have a biodegradable and biobased solution for every conventional and polluting plastic across industries.

With the future in mind, Balena is currently working on creating a holistic series of materials to add to the compostable BioCir™ family: an advanced film that can be used in place of technical textiles as well as a material for use in advanced rigid products such as buttons, sunglasses frames, and others that will replace unsustainable and polluting plastics usually used for these applications. In the future, we aim to have a biodegradable and biobased BioCycling solution for each and every conventional plastic in the industry.