Each New A3 Will Feature Interior Bits Made from Plastic Bottles
By and large, Audi is considered a luxury carmaker. The company is well known for its exceptional attention to detail, and the quality of components it puts into each new vehicle. This is the foundation upon which the brand has been built – and it’s an understanding that makes the headline here all the more curious. Indeed, Audi has announced it will use recycled plastic bottles as the source for the fabric in each new A3 produced.
Just how much plastic will be used?
So, each new Audi A3 automobile will now have repurposed an approximate equivalent of 100 plastic bottles in order to produce enough fabric to go into the interior. And in an attempt to settle those questioning the quality of the product, the premium car brand has outright promised the resulting fabric will be on par with the traditional textile featured in Audi vehicles.
How are they manufacturing plastic bottles into fabric?
The obvious question here and the answer is actually quite fascinating. Once the plastic bottles arrive at the recycling plant, they are sorted by color, size, and quality. Unnecessary things like caps are separated off to the side. A mill is then used to crush the bottles into flakes, which are next washed, dried, and melted down. After this process, nozzles are used to shape continuous plastic strands out of the mass. Once they have dried, a machine chops the strands into smaller pieces which, in turn, results in a granulate commonly referred to as “recyclate.” At this point, the recyclate undergoes extrusion to create threads, whereupon they’re wound onto coils that are then used in the final stage to manufacturing materials.
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Will we have a choice between Sprite Green and Fanta Orange bottle coloring?
As much fun as this might be, this won’t be the case. Audi stated that while the recycled upholstery will be available in a variety of colors, they will go by traditional naming. For instance, there's Torsion Steel Gray with yellow contrasting stitching. There will also be a plus two-tone black and silver with Rock Gray stitching. The company expects that at a later date, it will be able to offer black and red schemes as well.
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Is there anything else being “recycled” to create the A3?
Believe it or not, yes, though it may not be as extreme as the whole recycled plastic bottles into fabric story here. That’s because it’s becoming an increasingly common practice for the other components in the interior to also be made of secondary raw materials, including things like insulating materials and absorbers, the side panel trims of the luggage compartment, the loading floor and the mats.
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Is Audi the only carmaker to take this somewhat drastically “green” approach?
Actually, it’s not. Ford Motor Company is perhaps the best-known example out there of a car brand that is already doing this. In fact, Ford has been doing this for over two decades. It first began the process of using recycled plastic bottles with the Mondeo. Today, Ford goes through approximately 1.2 billion recycled plastic bottles a year.
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