Automakers have increasingly moved toward sustainable and Recycled materials to bolster the “green factor” of the latest models, and now suppliers are getting on board. Magna, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, recently announced a new line of seats made with 100 percent recyclable materials.

The new EcoSphere seats will use PET plastic, the same stuff used in reusable water bottles, which can be melted and recycled when the vehicle hits the salvage yard. Magna said it can manipulate the materials with any shape or texture the customer wants, and noted that it checked “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,” the company’s chief engineer said.

Magna didn’t elaborate on which automakers would take the materials, but the company said it would begin distributing them in 2026 in North America. The materials should help cut the massive amounts of waste coming out of old vehicles in the U.S., where there are currently up to 430 million pounds of foam and other materials ending up in landfills annually.

The company worked with German firm EcoSphere to get the plastics it needed to start the project. A five-person vehicle interior can take more than 1,200 water bottles worth of plastic, so Magna will need all the help it can get.

[Image: Magna International]

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