Magna's New Seating Material is 100 Percent Recyclable
Automakers have increasingly moved toward sustainable and recycled materials to bolster the “green factor” of the latest models, and now suppliers are getting on board. Magna, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, recently announced a new line of seats made with 100 percent recyclable materials.
The new EcoSphere seats will use PET plastic, the same stuff used in reusable water bottles, which can be melted and recycled when the vehicle hits the salvage yard. Magna said it can manipulate the materials with any shape or texture the customer wants, and noted that it checked “everything to make sure that every component is made out of a mono-material that’s either made out of recycled content or can be recycled at its end of life – and right now in the market, that is not there,” the company’s chief engineer said.
Magna didn’t elaborate on which automakers would take the materials, but the company said it would begin distributing them in 2026 in North America. The materials should help cut the massive amounts of waste coming out of old vehicles in the U.S., where there are currently up to 430 million pounds of foam and other materials ending up in landfills annually.
The company worked with German firm EcoSphere to get the plastics it needed to start the project. A five-person vehicle interior can take more than 1,200 water bottles worth of plastic, so Magna will need all the help it can get.
[Image: Magna International]
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Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
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According to the report on yesterday's Autoline Daily, there's an average of 43 pounds of foam in the seats of the average vehicle. Magna already has a deal with one of the D3 to supply EcoSphere seats.
Dumb.
Plastic seats can wait for them. Why not just use plastic lawn chairs. I just love sitting on plastic seat in the welting summer heat.
"or can be recycled at its end of life"
Can be recycled. But will it be?