NOVI, Mich. — Canadian supply giant Magna International has introduced a new foam and trim product line for vehicle seats that the company says is 100-per-cent recyclable and will help automakers reach sustainability targets by keeping seating materials out of landfills.
Magna, North America's largest parts supplier, said its new EcoSphere product line will use a polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, material that can be melted and reused at the end of the vehicle's life. The material can be manufactured to meet automakers' requirements and tailored to look or feel how the customer wants.
Magna investigated "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," said Carrie Young, Magna's chief engineer of seating innovation during an Oct. 10 media event in suburban Detroit.
Magna will roll out the material in 2026 to supply a North American automaker, Young said without disclosing the customer's name. She said the products are cost competitive with the materials they replace.
The product line comes to market as suppliers face growing pressure from automakers to meet rising climate and sustainability targets. Making suppliers greener is particularly important for automakers as they look to source more eco-friendly parts and limit the impact of emissions throughout their supply chain.
Magna said that making foam and trim materials recyclable will help cut significant amounts of waste. The average vehicle contains about 43 pounds (19.5 kilograms) of foam and trim, according to Magna. Given that about 10 million vehicles a year are disposed of in the United States alone, that translates to about 430 million pounds (195 million kg) of foam and trim ending up in landfills, the company said.
Each component of Magna's EcoSphere foam pad and trim cover sets, including hooks, adhesives, threads and padding, are made of the same PET material, allowing for easier disassembly at the end of the vehicle's life as its contents are sent to recyclers, Magna said. The material can then be melted down and used for other purposes.
"There's no need to separate the components," Young said. "You can just unhook it from the structure, take that foam pad with the trim cover on it, melt it down and turn it back into fiber or resin, or a PET product that can be recycled in a circular economy again and again."
WATER BOTTLES
Producing the material for a single trim set consumes about 115 plastic water bottles, while a single foam pad uses about 138. The seating for a new five-person vehicle would reuse more than 1,200 bottles, according to Magna.
To secure enough recyclable materials for the EcoSphere program, Magna partnered with German manufacturer TWE Group, a maker of technical textiles and nonwoven fabrics. TWE sources plastics from PET bottles, plastic straws, coffee cup lids and other materials collected from seas, rivers and lakes in developing countries. Those materials are then used to make recycled PET fibers.
Magna, headquartered near Toronto, ranks No. 4 on the Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers with worldwide sales to automakers of US$37.8 billion in 2022.
Magna reported about US$1.6 billion in sales in its seating systems division during the second quarter of 2023, the most recent period for which it has reported financials. Seating accounted for about 15 per cent of that company's overall revenue on the quarter.
