Just a few months ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, within the context of Apreski Milano Mountain Show (16-19 October, Big Theatre – in the MIND area, Milano Innovation District), Aliplast, a company of the Hera Group, announces a new industrial partnership with Imbotex, a Padua-based company specialising in natural and technical padding for furnishing and clothing. The collaboration forms part of Imbotex's Moonrise Dolomiti rPET project and represents a concrete model of circular economy applied to the textile supply chain.
Aliplast and Imbotex are combining expertise and technologies to build a transparent, certified and Made in Italy industrial supply chain and to foster a future for fashion focused on eco-design, sustainability and long-term value creation.
With Imbotex, we are bringing to fashion and sportswear the vertically integrated supply chain model that we have already successfully applied in other sectors, such as cosmetics," explained Michele Petrone, Managing Director of Aliplast. "We work to transform PET bottles into high-quality technical padding, thanks to synergistic industrial partnerships involving every link in the chain: from recycling to material regeneration, through to yarn production and the finished garment. It is an example of circular economy that demonstrates how sustainability and innovation can become a driver of competitiveness for the entire supply chain and safeguard the mountain territorial ecosystem.
The Moonrise Dolomiti rPET project aims to develop a tracked and certified supply chain for the production of technical fibre and padding for sportswear and fashion clothing – for mountain and outdoor use in general – starting from PET bottles collected separately in Italy from CSS (Selection and Storage Centres), with particular attention to alpine and North-Eastern areas. An initiative that brings together the expertise of various local operators to rethink the mountains as a sustainable and competitive ecosystem.
Through the use of regenerated materials, the integration of traceability systems and the adoption of a circular economy model, Imbotex's Moonrise Dolomiti rPET aims to build a sustainable and transparent supply chain for the textile market, capable of responding to regulatory challenges and the expectations of an increasingly aware market.
A circular economy model
Aliplast guarantees the recycling and regeneration of bottles into certified flakes, which are supplied to processors – led by Frana Polifibre, which has already embraced the initiative – to subsequently become fibre that Imbotex uses to create innovative, sustainable, lightweight, functional and durable padding, exclusively Made in Italy, intended for major technical, sports and fashion clothing brands.
The added value of the initiative lies in the genuine transparency and sustainability of the product, compliant with European regulations on recyclability and minimum recycled content. Each tonne of Moonrise Dolomiti rPET fibre is equivalent to the recovery of approximately 40,000 PET bottles, contributing to the mitigation of plastic pollution in the Dolomites and the enhancement of local separate waste collection. Brands joining the initiative will be able to communicate the genuine sustainability of their garments, distinguishing themselves from those using materials of uncertain origin or from outside the EU.
