Dubai, UAE, June 16, 2021— Emeraude International SAS, headquartered in Paris, made a strategic long-term investment in DGrade, a unique UAE based company that manages the full cycle from collecting and recycling plastic bottles to manufacturing sustainable clothing and plastic flake for consumer packaging. The partnership will expand DGrade’s global reach and facilitate Emeraude’s entry into the recycled plastic market.
Emeraude Green, the legal entity and brand of Emeraude, centralizes a focused mission on preventing and managing plastic pollution on a global basis with our local presence in developed and underdeveloped areas where we operate such as Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. Its main strategy is focused on Awareness, Recycled Materials and Investment. Umar Rafique, Emeraude’s CEO said, “This investment marks our commitment to tackle plastic waste with a true focus on education and recycling at the forefront. DGrade’s unique business model coupled with Emeraude’s technical expertise and global reach will help prevent plastic waste going into our environment by ensuring it is recycled responsibly into new products.”
DGrade has been working for a decade to divert plastic from landfill by recycling plastic bottles into its Greenspun® yarn to produce sustainable uniforms, clothing and merchandise. DGrade also plays a key role in recovering post-consumer plastic, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), in the UAE through its Simply Bottles recycling initiative. Working with major events, schools, hotel chains and other large corporate businesses, the program educates and engages people in recycling. Emeraude runs a similar program of educating school children about plastic usage, sorting plastic waste and recycling in multiple countries in Africa and the Indian subcontinent.
According to Kris Barber, CEO of DGrade, “We’re very excited to be partnering with Emeraude. We share a vision of driving sustainability in plastics and our partnership provides DGrade with scalability and exposure to global markets for our Greenspun® brand. It also supports DGrade in entering a new market by ultimately supplying recycled plastic to bottle-to-bottle manufacturers”.
About DGrade FZ-LLC
Since 2010 DGrade has been pioneering recycled fabrics, producing sustainable Greenspun® yarn from recycled plastic bottles. Serving a broad range of B2B customers, DGrade develops customized Greenspun® clothing and accessories, as well as its own branded product lines and Official Expo 2020 Dubai merchandise.
To further support DGrade’s mission to provide sustainable solutions, DGrade will begin supplying customers with rPET flakes and rPET granules for consumer packaging, to support a closed loop system by Q4 2021.
Recognizing the need for better education about recycling and a collection infrastructure, in 2015 DGrade launched the Simply Bottles recycling initiative. The initiative works with businesses, events and schools to encourage people to give plastic a second life by recycling with DGrade.
DGrade’s head office is based in Dubai, UAE and a processing facility is currently being established in KIZAD, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Visit http://www.dgrade.com for more information and follow them @dgradeclothing on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
