Sustainable fashion: what you should know about infinitely recyclable clothing

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This material would be a powerful weapon to fight plastic pollution in seas and oceans

With the motto "using science to make eternal fashion", the company Moral Fiber is the first in the textile sector to develop a product completely made of old clothes. Akshay Sethi and Moby Ahmed found a way to recover the polyester from the old clothes.

Leer en español: Moda sostenible: lo que debes saber de la ropa infinitamente reciclable

The discovery is not only good news for the textile sector, because according to Sethi, this same technique could be used in other types of plastic and it could process products such as bottles, containers, packaging, etc.

In addition to giving a new use to discarded textiles, Moral Fiber and its creators hope to establish a strategy to prevent the leakage of microfibers from garments that reach the seas and oceans.

In statements collected by the UN, Sethi states that “what we’ve seen so far is you can make a polyester fibre that doesn’t shed. You can do it, it’s just a question of making it in such a way that it’s scalable. We are working on ways to do that right now. You can’t have materials that go into the oceans and biodegrade there and turn into microfibres.”

The fiber would then be recyclable and would prevent the microfibers that come off the clothes from disintegrating and contaminating rivers, seas, and oceans.

Sethi wants to compete with the oil and ensures that innovation "has to be competitive with oil. If it’s not, it’s not sustainable. The number one cornerstone of our process was that we could compete on the economics of oil".

What is the process?

On the website of Moral Fiber, it is explained that there are four steps to achieve infinitely recyclable clothing.

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1. Textile waste is processed: currently, the company processes 100 kilos of clothes at its plant in Los Angeles. The garments come from local stores.

2. Vanguard Chemistry: Sethi explains that they "take a mixed material that contains cotton and polyester, and extract the latter at the molecular level to produce a new thread".

The UN points out that "the surplus material is incinerated to supply power to the pilot plant, but the box containing the equipment could be powered by solar panels placed on the roof. The process requires approximately 45 to 50 amps of power at its maximum consumption point".

3. Transparent production: after carrying out the chemical process and obtaining the yarn new garments are made that are part of a 100% circular production. Moral Fiber calls it transparent, because they know exactly the materials used and where they come from.

4. New garments: the new garments are ready to go on the market.

Sethi concludes that "all clothes made with Miral Fiber can be recycled infinitely". "When it comes to the life cycles of a product, we must go back to infinity. It's the only way".

If you want to buy clothes from this company, you must be tunned on its website, because in 2019 it will launch its first collection.

LatinAmerican Post | Marcela Peñaloza
Translated from "Moda sostenible: lo que debes saber de la ropa infinitamente reciclable"