Adidas by Stella McCartney’s limited-edition sweatshirt was the first to be commercially produced with a new technology that purifies and liquefies old cotton to transform it into a new material called NuCycl
In a year, the world tosses out an estimated 92 million tons of textile waste. In a little more than a decade, that number could increase by 60%. Cofounder and CEO of Evrnu, the company that developed technology, said it’s an attempt at dealing with the growing problem of waste from fashion.
“Essentially turns old clothing into new, high-quality raw materials for the creation of new clothes. Our goal is to convert that garment waste into new fiber, so that we eliminate the context of waste in the supply chain,” Flynn says.
Companies have been recycling cotton for years. But turning old fabric into new yarn strong enough to be remade into new fabric presents a much tougher challenge, which is why Evrnu’s process is chemical based instead.
“We’re breaking these materials down to their polymer form and building them back up,” Flynn says.
Evrnu takes the garment waste and turns it into a pulp, liquefies it, and then pushes it out of a 3D-printer-like extruder in order to create a new yarn.
The Adidas by Stella McCartney hoodie, made from a blend of new yard and organic cotton, uses fabric with a complex jacquard knit. “It’s demonstrating that not only can we salvage these resources from going into landfills or incinerators, but we can actually create higher performing material than the materials may have been in their original form,” Flynn says.
The new collaboration with Adidas will put together a small collection of 50 hoodies to be given to athletes, with the hopes of getting the prototypes out in 2019.
