About Back to Eco

EIn 2016, environmental educator Nuria Nubiola and biologist Montse Bayén joined forces out of a need to find new ways to make sustainability accessible to everyone. Their reason: a feeling that they lacked the resources and tools to get the message across to people who weren’t interested in the topic.

This is how the project was born, with the hope of bringing a new vision to the world of textiles. Eight years in which we at Back To Eco have worked obsessively to close the textile circle.

In 2017 Back To Eco opens its shop-workshop in the center of Barcelona. A shop where one person would upcycle used jeans obtained through the social organization Solidança and through donations from customers, transforming them into beautiful aprons, bags, backpacks…

We chose used jeans, or rather, post-consumer jeans, because of their universality, ease of handling, popular aesthetic, and easy access.

We started creating and selling all kinds of products by reusing jeans. We were very lucky to have an amazing social rent in that central location in the city that many of you know, and that’s what allowed us to grow quickly and give our project a voice.

In 2018, after seeing so many ripped jeans, we decided to start repairing our customers’ jeans.

In our third year, From so much reusing and cutting to repurpose, we started to accumulate a surplus of scraps (which we had been saving with the hope of transforming them into something) and we already had a ton of used jeans scraps. We requested funding from the Generalitat (Catalan government) and were able to begin industrially recycling these jeans scraps and using them to create new yarns and fabrics. The project was born. Infinit denim, which in that same year would receive the Ecodisseny de Catalunya awards.

This same year, the Barcelona City Council awarded us the prize for the most sustainable business in the city.

The rapid visibility of the project encouraged us to start giving workshops and conferences as a more regular part of our work and to increase our corporate clients, who were looking for different types of merchandising products with value.

In 2020 everything stopped, we made gowns and masks to survive and in the middle of a change of premises and a pandemic, we opened the circular clothing brand Infinit Denim.

In 2021 We started a collaboration with Levi’s recycling the jeans we collected from their stores, turning them into merchandising, decorations, etc., for the brand, and holding workshops in their stores. It has been a great help in sustaining our project.

In 2022 The Circular Denim Route was born, a proposal to maximize the lifespan of jeans by preventing wear and tear, repairing, reusing, and recycling online. It was a nice idea that never really got off the ground. That year, Montse left the project, and Núria Nubiola took over.

2023 was a year of reflection and change; we felt it was perhaps time to close some of our essential projects in order to move forward and be able to lead a more sustainable life as well as a sustainable project.

At the same time, we felt we wanted to return to our essence: environmental awareness. In November, we held our first citizen workshop focused on textile circularity, and that’s where the seed was planted for what is now being consolidated this year: Back To Eco LAB. We are returning to the community through participation.

The feeling is that 2024 marks a turning point. A stage where our focus will no longer be solely on materials; we want to delve deeper into ideas and the mobilization of people. We understand that we won’t achieve real change through recycling alone; we need to awaken consciences, and we want to do so through enthusiasm, enjoyment, and a love for things, through education, art, and culture.

Since 2025 we have started two educational projects that have motivated us a lot, bringing us closer to different audiences through design, collaboration and creative repair.

We want to bring more people to our cause and seek synergies with other disciplines.

We want to choose the what, the how, and the where.

We want to grow in our dreams for a beautiful, proud and sustainable textile.

We are a team of committed individuals who strive to ensure that our impact on the planet has a positive effect.