Composite materials are essential to lightweight, high-performance applications across sectors such as mobility, energy, and construction. However, their complex material composition and crosslinked structures, particularly in thermoset systems, have historically made recycling difficult and costly. As a result, large volumes of composite waste have been landfilled or incinerated, representing both an environmental burden and a significant loss of valuable resources.

RECREATE addresses this challenge directly. The project’s core opportunity lay in reducing the cost of fibres in the composites market by creating reliable, traceable, and certified pathways for reuse and remanufacturing. By delivering technologies and demonstrators that lower the cost of recovered carbon and glass fibres, RECREATE has contributed to decreasing overall composite production costs.

At the same time, RECREATE confronted one of the industry’s most pressing threats: the lack of viable recycling and circular business models for composites. The solutions presented in this brochure demonstrate demand-driven, scalable approaches that enable circular business cases to become a practical reality. Through validated technologies, industrial demonstrators, and integrated value chains, RECREATE has delivered a tangible shift toward circular reuse and remanufacturing of fibre-reinforced composite materials.

Target industries and market segments interested in the project results range across different sectors such as automotive and transport, wind energy, aeronautics and aviation industries and include European SMEs and large corporates as end users and technology providers.

RECREATE directly affects 70% of composite consumption sectors in the EU through its nine demo cases. Moreover, in terms of geographical distribution of composites use in manufacturing, the project covers 90% of the European market.