The 1957 was running and In postwar Prato, a city still to be reorganized, determination and creativity are required to launch a new undertaking. Evidently these qualities were not lacking in the then twenty-five Renato Cecchi, who with just two workers opened a dry-cleaning establishment in Via Donizetti. And thus was born Santo Stefano, so baptized in honor of the city's patron saint.	The small firm washed the fabrics and the wool "fringes" used by the national railways for the bearings of the trains, but as often happens, necessity was trasformed into virtue when the firm began recovering all the scrap materials that became available -the remnants of the wadding used in ammunition, even the wool and the rubber of the American tennis balls- to use as fuel and recycled material.