Sustainability

In Switzerland, we throw away around 2 million pans every year.

Yet 87% of these pans are still completely intact – apart from their non-stick coating.

2 million

pans end up in the bin in Switzerland every year

87%

of them are completely intact apart from the coating

80–95%

fewer resources are needed for a recoated pan

Save 80–95% of resources with RePan

RePan relies on regional sustainability. By upcycling intact pans from the region and reusing our customers’ pans, we save resources and protect the environment. Together with recycling centres such as the City of Zurich’s, we sort out intact, high-quality pans that ended up at the recycling yard. And we take back our customers’ pans so they aren’t disposed of unnecessarily.

80–95%, or a factor of 5 to 20, is huge. Where else can you get a better product with such a smaller footprint?

Source: Tefal life cycle assessment “livre vert”, calculated by Quantis in Lausanne and the ENSAM laboratories. To compare a new pan with a recoated one, RePan adapted the calculation to the recoating and excluded the use phase. The range reflects the origin of the original pan and the perspective taken (resources, ecosystems, health, global warming).

Bar chart: resource use of a new pan compared with a recoated pan

PFAS handled properly

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – put simply, molecules with fluorine atoms – are on everyone’s lips right now. They are a huge group of very persistent substances that break down poorly in nature.

Today, pans at the end of their life are melted down and the coating escapes into the environment through the chimney. RePan does it differently: we remove old coatings mechanically by blasting them off with corundum and have them burned in specialised incineration plants.

But isn’t Teflon toxic? No – the article Is Teflon toxic? explains why that is a myth.

Illustration: PFAS from the chimney compared with the RePan cycle

The cost of a new pan

What goes into every new pan

Throwing a pan away means buying a new one. This avoidable consumption comes with energy-intensive and polluting production.

Mining is particularly problematic

To extract the metals for pans, mountains are drilled through and removed. Mining destroys entire landscapes and the habitat of many animals and plants – often with disastrous consequences for local people.

Illustration of a metal factory with smoking chimneys

Metal processing uses a lot of resources

Besides oil-powered machines, trucks and smelters, processing ore releases toxic waste: sulphur dioxide, heavy metals, acids, alkalis and fine dust. They pollute the air and groundwater and harm people’s health.

Illustration of a scrapyard with a crane

Recycling is good, but not enough

Around 30% of metals come from recycling today. But scrap has to be collected, transported, sorted, treated, melted, alloyed and reshaped. That takes less energy than mining but still contributes to the 4.4 billion tonnes of CO₂ emitted worldwide each year.

World map with transport routes from Asia to Switzerland

Needless global nonsense

Mines are spread across the globe, and most pans are made in Asia and travel a long way before reaching Swiss kitchens. We prefer to think globally and act as locally as possible.

Sustainable packaging

RePan avoids all of this – and goes further: instead of single-use cardboard, our reusable logistics use plastic crates that we reuse dozens of times. And as the icing on the cake, we turn discarded cardboard from retail and industry into our padding. More about the reusable box.

Our offers

How to take part

Recoat your own pan

All brands, shapes, sizes and materials. Convenient pick-up anywhere in Switzerland. Ceramic-reinforced professional coating, free from PFOA, APEO, GenX and BPA.

Recoated pans in stock

Faster, with no waiting: choose a pan, order it and send back your old one. Hundreds of pan models in stock, cheaper or more durable than the original.

Reusable box

The most convenient way to recoat

We send you a prepaid reusable box. Fill it with everything that needs recoating and simply leave the box at your front door.

Request a box