The level of textile waste in the world is truly staggering; 85% of the 100 billion items of apparel produced by the textile industry EACH YEAR, ends up in landfills and less that 1% of old clothes are recycled into new clothing. This is obviously unsustainable if we are not to disappear under a pile of old clothes.
One of the most crushing disappointments of last year was the failure of Renewcell, a circular solution for textile waste. Nicole Rycroft, Executive Director of Canopy Planet, which is a Not For Profit that protects forests from fashion has said, “Every year, over 3.4 billion trees are logged to make paper packaging and viscose fabrics. These trees are often from Ancient and Endangered Forests—landscapes that are critical for stabilizing our climate and preserving natures”.
Whereas synthetic materials like polyester are plastics derived from oil and should be avoided at all costs, there is another group of materials, semi synthetics, that are sourced from wood pulp: these are the likes of Viscose, Rayon, Tencel and Lyocell. Canopy now has over half of the world’s viscose producers signed up to source pulp from sustainable forestry, but Rycroft knows the future has to shift from virgin materials to recycled. “We’re drowning in discarded textiles” she said.
Back in 2022, Nicole was excited about two innovations that addressed this issue: Nanolose, which uses agricultural food waste to make viscose pulp, and Renewcell, a factory which made a pulp, Circulose, from discarded textiles. Not only was Circulose a fully circular solution, but the process required 70% less energy, 90% less water, plus greener and fewer chemicals. A solution for all those overflowing landfills, and one that shifted us away from ‘take, make, waste’ production by transforming discarded clothing back into high-quality, low-carbon textiles “with five times (5x) less impact on biodiversity, and 4 tonnes less carbon per tonne of product.” Only, it all went wrong.
The news last year that Renewcell had gone bust was greeted with widespread dismay. Despite support from the likes of H&M and Inditex (owner of Zara), the pathway to growing this new circular material failed. Last month, Nicole said she was as upbeat as ever: “Next generation alternatives are ready to scale, will help keep vital forests standing, and are tangible solutions for both mounting waste and conventional supply chain volatility exacerbated by climate change.” She is adamant that the lessons learned by Renewcell have laid the path for future success.
Renewcell is now back, rescued by investors and rechristened Circulose. With a new CEO, Jonatan Janmark at the helm, the textile-to-textile industry is going again. The clothes are already out there, proving their worth.
So, what’s different this time? “We are starting from a different place,” says Janmark. “Renewcell had to spend the majority of their focus on building a factory, getting production up and running and validating the product in the market. They did a great job on this and achieved a lot. We have the luxury to build on this – the technology is proven, the factory is operating, the huge pile of product left over from the bankruptcy has made its way to the market and has been validated by a large number of brands and suppliers. We can now focus on where Renewcell struggled – improving the commercial offer and building the market to ensure there is demand for the full volume we can produce.”
It’s tempting to see the barrier to Renewcell’s success as terrible timing – they launched just as the economy turned, and brands found themselves sitting on huge amounts of inventory. The appetite to experiment with different materials dissolved. According to Janmark, “The main things that were lacking was (i) a strong enough offering, including the right services and price, (ii) a clear way to integrate Circulose into supply chains and (iii) having proactively built up the demand from the brand side.” With an eye on price, he is now working with brands to build the market and secure demand. Reformation, the new company, is one of the first out the gate. Reformation’s sustainability commitment is to be fully circular by 2030 and to achieve this they need to create a recycling solution for every product they make, committing to using as close to zero virgin materials as possible. Circulose is one such solution.
“We had supply chain partners using Circulose, which made the fabric development process easier and increased our confidence,” says Reformation’s Chief Sustainability Officer Kathleen Talbot. “The mill was familiar with the yarn types and guided us on technical aspects of dyeability, printability and performance.” Talbot wants Circulose to reduce the brand’s reliance on silk, which is chemical, energy and water intensive, as well as virgin viscose. “We’re not looking at this as just a capsule collection but rather how this next generation material can displace our core materials.” This is crucial: so many materials find a route to market but then are not able to scale. Next generation materials need long term commitments.
Ganni is another player on the Circulose books, with ambitions to have 10 per cent of its collections made from next-gen materials by 2027. Circulose features in its denim collection this spring, but the cult Scandi brand has also just signed a four-year agreement to use Cycora, a recycled polyester created by LA-based company Ambercycle. According to Vogue Business, Ganni has pledged to replace 20 per cent of its annual virgin and bottle-recycled polyester with Cycora.
“When the fashion industry is so influenced by external factors like consumer behaviour, global events or technological disruptions, forecasting demand can be difficult,” Ganni founder Nicolaj Reffstrup told Vogue. “But at the end of the day, doing the work and finding better alternatives to virgin materials is more important.”
Ultimately brands have to take risks and pay a higher price for a more secure future. “Circulose is slightly more expensive,” says Talbot, “but we are not passing that cost along to the customer. We felt comfortable we could absorb the premium, especially since it’s such an important first step in introducing next gen fibers. We believe that the future of fashion must be circular in order to be sustainable. Ending the harmful, take-make-waste cycle we are stuck in, starts with cutting off our harmful dependence on virgin materials. If we do our jobs right, next generation fibers like Circulose will become mainstream and fuel a more optimistic path forward for the industry.”
I thought this article brings a ray of hope in an otherwise dismal picture of our attempts at controlling the waste we are dumping on our home/planet.
