Make Textiles Matter: Create Sustainable Fabrics from Textile Waste

The more innovative sustainable fabrics are when we create fabrics for fashion clothes, the world can create a better market. Here, maake explores how the UK addresses how to make fabrics more sustainable and finds a few more innovative companies focusing on being sustainability making fabrics from food and textile waste for economic reasons.

New Innovations, Sustainable Fabrics

We have also given you lots of feedback regarding circularity and manufacturing fashion fabrics in our blog series on being sustainable. But another way of making innovative sustainable materials for clothing involves producing fabrics from waste. It’s when you take other people’s refuse and make treasures. Let’s explore how fashion houses and textiles manufacturers are doing this.

A recent innovation, Textiles 2030 is an NGO that focuses on supporting companies and organisations in the fashion and fabrics industry to “find circularity solutions and overcome shared challenges”. This way, the NGO hopes to voluntarily create a more sustainable existence for fabrics by 2030 and lessen the impact of fast fashion clothing on the planet.

By taking the time to share thoughts and any project with other companies in these industries, Textiles 2030 hopes to stop climate change by the end of this decade. And being at the halfway mark, that’s a mammoth task. First steps involve researching, innovating and designing systems in collaboration with other businesses to lessen the damage caused by fast fashion.

Their statistics tell the story of why this focus on being sustainable is so important, so let’s explore:

·      711000 tonnes of post-consumer fabrics are discarded in the general textile waste annually in the United Kingdom. Much of this waste is from fast fashion.

·      8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions in Britain come from the fabric industry, because of fast fashion.

·      This industry uses 93 billion cubic metres of water every year.

Materials Make Waste

Manufacturing fabrics involves various processes and depends on the materials and clothing, how those clothing items are made, and where. Textiles 2030 realised the importance of calculating the “overall carbon and water impacts and savings associated”. The NGO has done intensive research to provide a “representative, relevant and accurate” estimate that they call the Textiles 2030 Footprint Tool & Methods Report. This sustainability report started, along with Textiles 2030, at the beginning of this decade, and is currently in its fifth year.

According to statistics, The United Kingdom’s clothing and fabrics sector currently supports around 1.3 million jobs – one in every 25 jobs in Britain! This industry is one of the largest sectors in the country, and its influence extends all over the earth.

The British Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT) is the country’s largest network for recycled fabrics, bringing together global and British brands, designers, manufacturers and suppliers. “With a growing focus on sustainability and innovation,” UKFT tells us, they are “driving meaningful action in the transition to a circular economy.”

This organisation represents the British clothing industry, “from jeans, Savile Row suits and designer dresses through to medical masks, upholstered car seats and next-generation fabrics”.

They made a manufacturing report on circularity that discusses the way forward for the industry, the importance of being sustainable and a shift towards circularity. One of their main focuses is embracing and integrating new technologies and innovations for sustainable fabrics and clothing to be made.

We’ve written reams about why sustainable materials are so important, which you can read right here.

New Science: Recycled Plants & Food to Materials

As time passes and we sit in year five of 10 to 2030, what can be done to transform textile waste into fabric? The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that one-third of all global edible objects is wasted. So, using it is a brilliant innovation for making sustainable fabrics!

1.     Oranges into Organic Textiles

Italian company Orange Fibre takes ‘pastazzo’ – the citrus pulp and peels remaining from fruit after making juice out of it – and transforms this cellulose into a ‘silk-like fibre’, that can either be used on its own or blended with other fibers to create recycled fabrics. This material, called “TENCEL™ Limited Edition x Orange Fiber” is made in Sicily in a sustainable closed loop process. The company was founded in Catania in 2014. Global designer brands using these fabrics include Salvatore Ferragamo.

2.     Nettles Into Recycled Fabric

There are 3 different nettle plants made into future fabrics – these global plants include Ramie and Himalayan nettle amongst others. The fibre from these nettle plants goes through a recycling process to create alternatives for plastic in various global countries such as Japan, Scandinavia, Germany, China, Russia and Poland. One of the reasons for this plant’s popularity is that it is much more sustainable to grow than organic cotton or hemp, which requires far more water and pesticides.

Some of the fabrics made from nettle plants have been likened to fine silk with a breathable structure.

3.     Kapok to Organic Cotton Fabric

Another silk-like textile is made from kapok fibers, which are breathable, water resistant, lightweight and hypoallergenic. The process required to transform kapok into fabrics is long, carried out in Cambodia using Bombax Ceiba’s fruits. The trees grow up to 164 feet, no higher, and produce around 4,000 fruits each season. Very little water transforms fruit into a recycled kapok and organic cotton blend material. As this particular organic fibre takes time to be made into material, it’s used mainly for lightweight thermal clothes made using organic cotton and other blends.

4.     Coffee Grounds to Sustainable Fabrics

Transforming coffee grounds into fabrics involves collecting grounds, drying and processing them into biodegradable fibres and material. These materials are known for their UV protection. It dries fast, so clothes like activewear and footwear brands like to use it.

For more textile innovations focusing on sustainability, view our latest blog.

Follow our Lead

At maake, our primary focus is on to be sustainable and use sustainable materials. With our maake less Wastesustainability initiative, we do our utmost to eliminate this by creating recycled fabrics, and we try to be sustainable in every possible recycling way: 

· We Focus on Innovation & Being Sustainable: We consider our environmental impact when we print on material. We use as little water and energy as possible, and reduce waste. For our sustainability initiative, we use a 100% renewable energy source. A test shows that the energy we use to print is less than it takes to use a home fan heater. Also, the inks we use for printing are all sustainable and toxin-free.

· Zero Waste Policy: As we care about eliminating as much surplus as possible, we offer customers free upcycling units and give excess recycled organic and synthetic fabric to local charities, schools, and educational institutions.

· We Save Energy: We use energy-saving cut-off switches on all our printing and manufacturing machines, so they consume less energy when not in use.

· We ‘Buy Local’: We purchase everything we need for our business locally. Customers can also pick these up from our North London mill, reducing our footprint further and saving locals time in collecting their items.

· We Have a Safe, Clean Working Environment: Our team enjoys safe, healthy working conditions. And all earn the London Living Wage.

· We Shop Small: As a small company in the textile industry, we understand how important it is to back small businesses. Check out our Guide to Printing on Sustainable Fabrics.

· We Control Waste Materials: We encourage clients and colleagues to give recycled organic or regular fabrics like organic cotton, wool and bamboo a second life instead of using synthetic materials and become more aware of sustainability. Our Textile Waste initiative has a policy that gives like-minded people in our industry interested in being sustainable an opportunity to act positively by donating recycled material to charities, schools and customers. If you’d like to become a volunteer, contact us here through our website page for more data.