The European textile industry disposes of millions of tonnes of production waste every year. Powdera startup from Brianza, and Coolooa Dutch materials company, are working together to work towards a different outcome, one that treats waste not as a disposal problem but as a valuable raw material.
Together, the two companies have created an innovative surface spray material, derived from pulverized textile waste. It was revealed on of Baolab exposure during Milan Design Week 2026the project asks what recycling can look like with new faces, proposing innovative solutions that can truly reframe the way waste is seen in design.
Amsterdam Expo © Cooloo
Textile waste © Pulvera
Material Quarter Fair © Cooloo / Photo by Neneh Reza Verburg
Birkenstock Shop © Cooloo
Application of material © Pulvera
Material Quarter Fair © Cooloo / Photo by Neneh Reza Verburg
Production process © Cooloo
Pulverized textile waste © Pulvera
Material Quarter Fair © Cooloo / Photo by Neneh Reza Verburg
Pulvera is a startup born in Renate, in the Brianza design area, from a company with decades of experience in the textile industry. Its founding logic is to take the scraps of all kinds of textile materials that are supposed to go to waste and turn them into powder. This process completely undoes the original object, returning the discarded material as new potential. This powder can then be used by other companies for different applications.
Cooloo is a Dutch company that revolves around Endless Life® technology, essentially an advanced spray coating system that uses pulverized waste to create surfaces. Based on the principle that the furniture industry wastes vast amounts of value by discarding what could be refurbished, Cooloo developed a patented process that combines waste powders with bio-based binders and applies them as a coating to almost any surface. The result is a material that is waterproof, non-toxic, solvent-free and most importantly, reusable, so that as use wears it down, it can be renewed again.
What makes the collaboration possible is the direct integration of Pulvera’s fabric powder into Cooloo’s coating system. Most interestingly, the Pulvera material does not just disappear, but remains legible. For example, CoolJeans, one of Cooloo’s existing coating materials, is made from denim scraps and looks and feels like denim. The same logic applies to other materials of course; the waste does not disappear in a neutral product, but remains legible.
“We are participating in Milan Design Week to show companies and designers how sustainability can take a leap forward to become not only responsible but also desirable.” comments Eleonora Casati, co-founder of Pulvera. “This collaboration with Cooloo shows how, starting from waste, it is possible to create surfaces and applications with a strong visual and design impact, and we are pleased to present to the public a technology that is almost completely new in Italy, but with strong potential for development throughout the territory.”
Casati uses the word desirablea key theme in contemporary sustainable design. Sustainability is often described as necessary, ethical, fair, but rarely desirable. The question of how we can make sustainability desirable is one that design discourse has tossed around for years, never fully resolving. Cooloo’s answer is to not ask the material to apologize for what it is. Denim coating looks like denim because it’s denim, in direct contrast to the many sustainable materials that aim to cover up a material’s history, such as trying to make food waste look like plastic.
Powder and Cooloo they create a different model of reuse and what a surface is. they suggest that the end of one product can be the beginning of another, but it can also be a rebirth. Allowing a material To keep its original properties, just used in a different form, they propose a new model of what a waste material can become.
