Recycling a la mode

The Swiss start-up was one of five international groups who pitched their ideas at the ISC₃ Investor Forum as part of the Impact Festival in Frankfurt. The fashion and textile industry has the second largest impact on environmental pollution worldwide, behind petroleum. One reason is the water-intensive production processes that use chemicals, leading to global warming and toxic wastewater.

As a result, it is responsible for around eight per cent of all carbon emissions, according to the UN Environment Programme. And the European Environment Agency reports that 20 per cent of global wastewater is from synthetic textiles. It presented significant challenges but also produced some inspiring stories from the start-ups who took part as these examples demonstrate. Here, we look at the contribution of all five finalists which were drawn from all over the world.

Dr Jade Bouledijouidja, for example, used her doctoral thesis on the behavior of supercritical fluids in polymer materials as the basis for the technology behind Renasens’ solution for more effective textile recycling seven years ago. The waterless multipotential technology can extract fibres from mixed textile waste without depolymerization. It has been proven on a laboratory scale at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

The focus is on the removal of dyes and additives from pure and mixed textiles and the separation of mixed fibres such as polycotton and cotton-acrylic. This creates new resources without compromising the properties of the fibres. “With our technology, we can achieve the goal of using 80-90 per cent recycled fibres in new garments,” she said.

The company has also set itself the goal of raising awareness of the true cost of textiles, the current unsustainable use of clothing, and the processes involved in textile production. The entire value chain will be more transparent.

Dr Alexis Bazzanella, Director of the ISC₃ Innovation Hub felt this impressively demonstrated the way in which Sustainable Chemistry can play a decisive role in moves towards more resource-efficient textile production. The challenge for Mexicos’s Polybion was to find an alternative to the crude oil and animal-based origins of leather materials, both of which often need aggressive chemical treatments which make recycling impossible. With its next-generation material made from fruit waste, Polybion developed an animal-free and ecologically valuable alternative. Importantly, these materials can only have a significant impact as direct substitutes for products such as leather, silk, fur, down or wool if they are affordable, competitive and available on a mass scale. Exactly what Polybion promises with its leather alternative, Celium. Founder Axel Gómes-Ortigoza believes biology is the best tool to tackle global challenges: “We use locally produced agricultural and industrial fruit waste as a raw material for the production of a more sustainable leather alternative,” he said.