wildlines – 100% recycled cork yogamat in a closed loop

For years, a yoga mat made of cork in combination with natural rubber has been advertised as the sustainable alternative. However, natural rubber mixtures are often used here, the mixing ratios of which do not have to be specified, similar to plastic production. These different material compositions often make successful recycling impossible.

In addition, our worldwide annual demand for natural and synthetic rubber has almost doubled from 2002 at almost 18 million tons to around 30 million tons by 2018 (Statista, 2022). Cultivated in Southeast Asia, the largest demand for rubber comes from China, closely followed by India and the EU (Environmental Dialogue, 2015). Because of its elasticity and resilience, natural rubber must be used for car and aircraft tires in particular. Every year rain forests are cut down to grow monocultures for natural rubber trees. This cultivation method is accompanied by serious violations of human rights such as violent resettlement and adverse working conditions for smallholder families. The valuable raw material has to be transported halfway around the world - if not even through further processing - around the whole world.

The sustainable cultivation of natural rubber is possible, but the licensing is very expensive, since in addition to the fair and transparent price, independent observers are also sent and the production and working conditions are observed and have to be witnessed.

Mit wildlines gehen wir einen anderen Weg: Wir haben die Vision, die erste Kork-Yogamatte in einer Kreislaufwirtschaft in Europa zu etablieren.

We do not use any new valuable resources, but use existing recyclable materials that are produced as waste products in industry. The top consists of 100% recycled cork granules, which feels soft and at the same time gives you the necessary support for your yoga practice. You can also benefit from the natural properties of cork, such as quality and performance, durability and lightness, as well as antibacterial and anti-allergenic properties.

The underside, a combination of 100% recycled fine cork granulate and car tire rubber, provides cushioning. Car tires are nothing more than rubber mixtures that often end up being burned or disposed of illegally in the environment after use. And since there are already enough used car tires, all the resources of our cork yoga mat come 100% from Portugall. Only the transport route to Germany is incurred.

A family-run company in the third generation manufactures your cork yoga mat with a lot of knowledge and love for the material. We know her personally and appreciate her wealth of ideas and her open exchange with us. Together with them, we want to establish a circular economy for our yoga mats, i.e. we collect used wildlines cork yoga mats at the end of their lives. The old material becomes the new material for the bottom of a cork yoga mat. In this way, no resources are lost.

It took us two years to be able to present this alternative to you according to our ideas and values. Let's think sustainably for our planet. For more ecology, fairness and transparency.

Love goes out
Mel & Jen

P.S. The most sustainable way to own a yoga mat is to use an existing one until you can't anymore. So only buy a mat when you really need it. <3

The yoga mat is just right for you if ...

• you really need a new yoga mat (continuing to use is often more ecological than buying a new one.)
• you want to practice on a natural material like cork, which is soft, non-slip, performant, durable, light, antibacterial, antiallergic and ultimately recyclable.
• you want to be sure where your mat really comes from.
• you want to contribute to the sustainable circular economy in Europe.
• you are looking for a favorite piece that you don't want to put away.

What do we want to achieve together with you?

• Use existing materials regionally for a sustainable yoga mat and thus reduce the waste of resources on earth
• Establish a circular economy for disused yoga mats in order to produce new ones from old mats
• Establish fair working conditions, ecological production and distribution (short transport routes, verifiable origin, protection of nature) and transparent communication on the market

With your support for a wildlines cork yoga mat you help to protect the precious resources of our earth and use materials that have already been produced that would otherwise be incinerated or illegally disposed of in the environment.

However, to ensure that this does not only remain with one life cycle of a mat, we will collect used mats in a recycling process and manufacture new mats.

You can expect a 100% recycled cork yoga mat that was manufactured in Portugal fairly and ecologically sustainable. The cork top and recycled rubber/cork bottom provide the perfect combination of softness, support and cushioning for your everyday yoga practice.

At the same time, you support two young, motivated founders to establish themselves on the market with their value-based, sustainable company and thus an alternative to common cork yoga mats. ] to offer.

With this campaign you can be among the first to own a 100% recycled wildlines cork yoga mat. Contribute to sustainability with a conscious purchase decision.

Since 2020 we have been investing a lot of time and even more money in our detailed material research from our own pockets. That's not even counting our hundreds of hours of design, marketing, sales, and shipping of our previous products.

Now that we have found our solution for an ecological, fair and transparently sustainable cork yoga mat, we need your support for the implementation.

• 10,000 € for the first large wildlines order: We have been working with our cork producer from Portugal for 1.5 years and have already had our cork yoga blocks produced there. We want to commission the first mats by the beginning of June 2022 and have to pay in advance for this.
• 4000 € for the establishment of the circular economy: We have already spoken to our cork producer from Portugal and want to set up the recycling cycle and the infrastructure for it. In addition, we have to do further tests with the old mat material to ensure the quality of our wildlines cork yoga mats.
• 3000 € for a reliable shop system with accounting connection: Since we are currently handling our orders with Excel spreadsheets, we would like to switch to a shop system that has a direct accounting connection ready in order to sustainably save working time for the entire save team.
• 2000 € for storage and shipping: We were so focused on the material research for the underside of our cork mat that we now have to take care of possible storage, processing and shipping.
• 1000€ for sales and promotion: We want to expand our sales channels to share our message, our knowledge and ultimately our products with the people. In order to be seen, we also have to advertise.