Polyester is a durable, wrinkle-resistant and easy-care material that is ideal for many home furnishing products like rugs, pillows, quilts and cushions.
The downside to virgin polyester is that it is made from oil, coal or natural gas. This means that when we use virgin polyester, we are exhausting the planet’s natural resources. Our response to this, is to replace all virgin polyester with recycled in our products.
In 2020, we achieved the milestone of replacing 79% of the virgin polyester used in IKEA textile products and will accelerate the transformation towards the aim of only using recycled polyester throughout the product range where polyester is used.
Did you know you could adjust the temperature with curtains and blinds? A honeycomb structure of the HOPPVALS blind creates a layer of insulation, keeping your room warmer during the colder season and cooler in the warmer months.
A layered curtain solution allows you to fine-tune light, sound, temperature and style in a personal way. And, the amount of privacy or openness you want, is always just around the corner.
We all need a place to revitalize at the end of a long day, before the next morning. With three layers of light filtering and mood setting curtains and blinds, you can adjust your bedroom window to whatever you need.
Need to catch up on some sleep? Change your bedroom from daylight to complete darkness with an inner layer of block-out blinds. A thick curtain on top brings soothing cozyness and dampens sounds around you.
We believe children are the most important people in the world. Therefore, we adapted our range of blinds and curtains to make your windows as safe as possible. We spent four years coming up with alternatives, and where we couldn’t, we simply removed the product from our range. So now all IKEA blinds are completely safe for your kids.
Goodbye cords, hello peace of mind.
Part of the secret to creating really beautiful, easy layered solutions is making sure your window is properly measured.
1. The width of your window (a)
This determines the width of your curtain rod or track rail. Add at least 15 cm on each side to allow the curtains to cover the window properly and open completely.
2. The length of your curtains (b)
This determines the length of your curtains or panel curtains. Measure from the top of the window frame and stop where you want your curtains or panel curtains to end. As a rule of thumb, add 15 cm to the measurement. Mount the curtain rod or rack rail 15 cm above the window frame.
Originally, all polyester was made from oil-based raw materials which are not renewable but we are switching to only using recycled polyester. The good thing is that polyester can be recycled over and over, without negatively affecting the quality of our products.
When we make products from recycled polyester, we give a second life to material that is not biodegradable and reduce the amount that may otherwise end up in landfill or the ocean. Instead, PET and other sources of polyester are used to make textiles, storage boxes, kitchen fronts and even lamps.
Recycled polyester is just as good as virgin polyester in terms of looks, quality and function, and produces about 50% less in CO2 emissions. And the material is just as clean and safe in every way.
Recycled polyester makes us less dependent on oil. The amount we convert, is equal to the amount of virgin fossil fuel we eliminate from our polyester raw material (this excludes potential dyeing and other post recycled polyester production treatments).
With some exceptions, the challenge is not the conversion of polyester into recycled itself, but to make it available to everyone by keeping it affordable. Buying low environmental impact products often comes with a higher price tag. We want to change that by working to make recycled polyester products more affordable and accessible to the many people.
IKEA is committed to end the dependency on virgin fossil materials and only use renewable or recycled materials by 2030.
We are accelerating this movement for polyester in our range and aim to replace all virgin polyester in our textile products with recycled. In 2020, IKEA replaced 79% of the virgin polyester used in IKEA textile products with recycled polyester. In volume, this means we converted 130,000 metric tonnes of recycled polyester, and saved 200,000 tonnes of virign polyester.
We haven’t reached our 100% goal yet, but we have come far and overcome many obstacles on the way. These volumes make us a leader in converting to recycled polyester and we hope that our decisions can inspire and motivate whole industries to change.
At IKEA, we demand that all recycled polyester used in IKEA products shall come from recyclers that are compliant with the Global Recycled Standard and traceability is secured to the IKEA product through requirements toward the IKEA Suppliers.
By only using recycled polyester that meets the Global Recycled Standards we manage to secure social, environmental and chemical practices at the recycler’s production. We believe that the GRS standard is the best standard on the market today. We work with our partners and textile organisations such as Textile Exchange to further improve standards on recycled materials, including traceability of material beyond the recycling units.
