FABRIC: Renewcell
Regions: Sweden
Fabric Name:
CIRCULOSE®
Origin:
Textile waste
Who made our dye:
Renewcell
Natural history and ecology:
CIRCULOSE® stands as a branded dissolving pulp innovatively crafted solely from 100% textile waste, including discarded jeans and manufacturing remnants. Fiber manufacturers employ dissolving pulp to create a range of biodegradable regenerated fibers like viscose, lyocell, modal, acetate, and other man-made cellulosic fibers.
These regenerated fibers undergo spinning into yarns, weaving or knitting into fabrics, and are ultimately transformed into fresh, high-quality textile products.
“What we are solving is what can be done with cellulosic waste garments, and we are addressing this in a circular way. This hasn’t been done before, so we are closing the loop between collectors, sorters, and processors, and we are a recycler that can then bring this cellulose back into the cycle. ”
— Jenny Fredricsdotter/Renewcell
Jenny Fredricsdotter
Meet Jenny Fredricsdotter, Circular Business Manager at Renewcell, a textile recycling company. Renewcell has invented a product they call Circulose®, made entirely out of textile waste. Now, brands can use Circulose® to replace materials like fossil oil or cotton or wood within their lines, and thus reduce the impact of their textiles. Renewcell’s aim is to change the fashion industry from a wasteful to sustainable community, altering the status-quo of what happens when a garment is thrown away; instead of ending up in landfill, clothes can find a circular life-cycle in Renewcell’s recycling technology.
ATW80F met with Fredricsdotter at Future Fashion Expo 2023, and she explained Renewcell’s process, “We want to use as much cellulosic rich textile waste as possible…Today, less than 1% of the textiles being discharged is [put] into textiles again. So this is a number we want to increase. We want to be the best in the world [at[ recycl[ing] textile waste with high cellulosic content. So, by recycling this textile, we save it from landfill or incineration, and we make it into a new raw material. [Circulose®] is [made of] a hundred percent cellulose coming from textiles. And this is an alternative raw material for making new man-made cellulosic fibers. So, we take the textiles, we make a new raw material, and from that raw material you can create new fibers with virgin quality. So, then the garment that has been put as waste, can—instead of being incinerated or put in landfill—go back into a new environment again, and this can continue several loops if we manage to get [the materials] back.”
Fredricsdotter and her team at Renewcell are excited by their quick growth and the press attention toward their company, and look forward to bringing even more people into their loop of circular fashion.