New impact protection specialist creates world’s first high-performance, biodegradable body armour

Impact protection company RE ZRO®’s 100% recyclable and biodegradable body armour offers the highest possible level of safety with minimal harm to the environment.

RE ZRO® was founded by a group of like-minded individuals looking to change the impact protection sector for the better by revolutionising the lifecycle of impact protection without compromising on performance. The result is body armour which is at once safe, comfortable, usable and sustainable.

Unlike traditional impact protection products, RE ZRO®’s knee, hip, elbow, shoulder and back protectors are made without the use of Polyurethane, eliminating a waste and pollution-heavy manufacturing process.

What’s more, the body around contains a unique composite material which allows it to be both 100% recyclable and 100% biodegradable. While traditional Polyurethane products take decades to break down in landfill, this body armour will “return to zero” in just 3 to 5 years.

This doesn’t come at the price of an inferior product, though; the armour’s impact absorption surpasses all enforced safety standards. This is thanks to a process known as shear-thinning where the ‘super-molecules’ fracture, absorb shock and recombine, or “return to zero”, upon impact.

This attention to safety hasn’t made the products bulky, either. The armour is ultra slim, lightweight and offers great flexibility. What’s more, RE ZRO® impact protectors remain completely malleable in extreme temperatures and provide market-leading levels of ventilation.

Wil Marschall, RE ZRO® CEO, said, “Our vision at the start was clear; we wanted to design body armour with sustainability at the forefront, but it didn’t take too long realise that recyclability alone was not enough. The sad truth is that the consumer can do everything in their power to recycle a product at the end of its life, but there is a very high chance that it will end up in landfill anyway. For this reason, we had to look at the entire production process and ensure that RE ZRO® products would biodegrade if they were to end up in landfill. We also wanted to achieve all of this without any compromise on the performance of the product. Put simply, we set out to make impact protection better, for the environment and for the end user, and with RE ZRO® we have done just that. Consumers can enjoy the perfect balance between weight, breathability, flexibility and impact absorption, protecting themselves whilst also protecting the planet.”

RE ZRO® will be announcing its first brand partnerships in 2023.