The textile, clothing, leather and footwear (TCLF) industries employ 80,000 workers in Bulgaria. However, employment has gone down by 20% in the past four years which is a concern. Social partners discussed the challenges and opportunities of the new EU Sustainable Textiles Strategy and focused on both environmental and social sustainability. They agreed that for the Strategy to be successful, all stakeholders must come together, and that a level playing field must be maintained between EU (Bulgarian) and non-European companies. In the face of tough global competition, huge investment will be needed in both technology and people to ensure that the Bulgarian TCLF sectors can become greener and more digital. The modernisation of these sectors would also help the sector to become more attractive to Bulgarian workers, thus reducing the need to hire workers from abroad.

On 28th-29th September, the consortium of the Erasmus+ project DiaSHOE met in Iasi (Romania) at the Technical University “G. Asachi” (TUIASI). The project of expected duration of 24 months is on its last phase. As previously explained, DiaSHOE aims at raising awareness among different categories of people supporting diabetics on the Diabetes Foot Syndrome (DFS), and on the importance of appropriate footwear in order to improve the quality of life of the patients. In this regard, the partners coming from 7 different EU countries (Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Romania, Poland, Portugal and Spain) are developing training materials for specific target groups, namely footwear designers and technicians, shop assistants and DFS patients.

El Centro Tecnológico del Calzado de La Rioja, CTCR, ha conseguido nuevos avances en el marco de la investigación que permitirá la obtención de materiales avanzados que aporten nuevas prestaciones en cuanto a protección y sostenibilidad se refiere. Se trata del desarrollo de varios tipos de EPI, Equipos de Protección Individual: calzado con nuevas propiedades y/o mejoradas, con mayor adhesión o resistencia al deslizamiento y agarre; guantes con un agarre superior cuyo uso proteja a máximos niveles de cualquier objeto punzante y cortante. A parte de la funcionalidad que persigue la I+D+i en este campo, el CTCR conseguirá un valor añadido pues el procedimiento de fabricación de los mismos será totalmente respetuoso con el medio ambiente. Frente a las dos etapas actuales de fabricación de suelas, halogenación y termofijado, caracterizadas por su alta toxicidad y baja sostenibilidad, los tecnólogos riojanos proponen un nuevo procedimiento de plasma-polimerización combinado con electrospinning automatizado y digitalizado por visión artificial y robótica colaborativa.