We well realize that the textile industry is one of the biggest contributors to environmental damage. Seeing the scope of this problem, and seeing how people are still swayed by fast fashion, we still don’t know when this global issue will improve.
As eco-conscious consumers, a few easy things we can do are thrifting more, renting more instead of buying new clothes, particularly formal attire; and if we must buy, we look for sustainable brands or companies that don’t greenwash.
Finding the last one can be tricky, though. As we know, greenwashing is a well-known problem across many industry sectors. But maybe this material innovation company can be a pioneer in breaking that cycle: Evrnu, the one making new recyclable clothes from textile waste—at least that’s the simplest way to describe it.
According to Stacy Flynn, CEO and co-founder of Evrnu, the company’s core competency is invention. “A lot of people can produce, but very few people can invent and tune around the existing infrastructure,” Flynn said.
Flynn co-founded the company with president Christopher Stanev in 2014. Together, they’re making products which shatter the notion that the apparel industry must be synonymous with excessive production and waste.
How concern turns into a sustainable business
Evrnu’s conception started from Flynn’s journey in 2010, when she was working as the director of sustainable development at Rethink Fabric, a Seattle startup that makes clothing out of plastic waste.
The job took Flynn to China for a month to find manufacturers. During her business travel, she witnessed firsthand how the apparel industry keeps costs low.
“I saw how we’re cutting corners on the environment and how people are living as a result of those corners being cut and just decided that this cannot be how the story ends. So I wanted to spend the rest of my career finding solutions that were able to turn this issue around,” Flynn said.
One day she asked herself if she could take textile waste and transform it into an entirely new material. She then partnered with Stanev and started Evrnu.
Just like any business ventures, the company’s road was a bumpy one, particularly because it’s a pioneer. Other industry players were doubting Flynn and Stanev.
“I brought the research to a lot of different peers and a lot of the engineers I talked to initially said, ‘What you’re trying to do, it’s technically impossible. Don’t even try. If it could have been done, it would’ve been done,’” Flynn said.
Despite the setback, Flynn wasn’t ready to give up. She believed in Evrnu’s ability to innovate, so she liquidated her retirement fund to create prototypes during the company’s first four years.
Her resilience and effort led to Evrnu’s first technology: NuCycl, which uses cotton textile waste as its sole input to create high-performance materials that can be recycled repeatedly.
Upcycling textile waste in another way
Of course, Evrnu’s technology isn’t the first one to give new life to textile waste—there’s been research, innovation, and studies with the same goal.
But recently, Cornell University researchers have found a way to chemically break down old clothing and reuse polyester compounds. But instead of making new clothes like Evrnu, this recycling result in fire-resistant, anti-bacterial or wrinkle-free coatings that can then be applied to new clothes and fabrics.
Co-author Juan Hinestroza said, “We think that our clothes are recycled or reprocessed; but most of the time they are actually sent to other places as solid waste. Our main goal is to offer a pathway to reuse this material”
In the study, the researchers might be able to upcycle old textiles into several high-performance coatings for new textiles.
The researchers came up with a process that involves cutting textiles into pieces and chemically decomposing them into a soup of raw materials, dyes, additives, dirt and esters.
Then, a metal solution is added and building blocks from the polyester will share an affinity with the metal, which will then selectively link together metal compounds, forming tiny cages that settle to the bottom of the soup.
The cages that form are then used to make coatings, which may need to be adapted to specific uses, including coatings that keep permanent press apparel from wrinkling, antibacterial coatings for surgical gowns or scrubs, or fire-retardant coatings for baby or industrial clothes or furniture.
“One goal of my lab is to create a universal coating that will serve all these purposes; though we are still far away from that,” Hinestroza said.
Just like many similar efforts, the study’s main goal is to contribute to a circular economy and closed loop system where waste will get reused for a long time.
Rooted in closed loop system
Evrnu believes in closed loop system, but they want to do something more. The company aims that clothes made from its technology will remain in circulation as long as possible, and the same garment can be repurposed infinitely. Your T-shirt could end up becoming your jeans or vice versa.
The technology starts with mechanical separation: sorting and grading of the textile waste. Then, the fabric goes through a near-infrared scanner, which can detect the “digital signature” of the fiber content. Next, the fabric gets shredded, activating the cotton fiber.
Finally, a lyocell solvent is added. After several hours of mixing, the material turns from a solid to a thick, viscous liquid. Once the fiber is in that form, it can be pushed through an extruder and reshaped.
“That’s probably the coolest piece of innovation. You can take something that’s currently perceived as garbage, turn it into a form where you can manipulate it into any shape you want, and build high-quality products,” Flynn said.
Convincing the market
After succeeding with the technology’s prototype, the two Evrnu founders were in need of support. They began “hustling” and tried to find network to get their company running. Flynn said it was an experience no one can really prepare for.
“Nothing can train you for becoming an entrepreneur,” Flynn said. “You’ve got to have a lot of resilience. You’ve got to have a tremendous amount of faith in what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”
Of course, convincing people to support their company wasn’t easy. Other people don’t always see what the founders see.
“Early on, I would get very sad. I cried when I would get turned down by investors. I felt like the vision that I had for the environment, for humanity, was not going to be achieved. And that was hard. And I had to get back up and move people to a yes,” Flynn admitted.
It was until 2016 that Evrnu got the support they much needed—it formed its partnership with Levi’s. “[We] ended up creating a collaboration with Levi’s and inspiring Levi’s to make the first prototype. And I knew that if I could get our product into the form of a pair of Levi’s jeans, every investor would know what we were trying to do,” Flynn said.
Hopefully, Evrnu—Flynn and Stanev—will continue to get support so that the company can expand its technology and, in the future, help give us clothes made entirely from textile waste.
Sources
https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/jeans-made-out-ofwhat-a-company-is-innovating-to-the/449417
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