This year, a new partnership between Renewcell and the Swiss yarn manufacturer HeiQ was announced. Combining our two innovations, together we are able to produce a game-changing replacement for the most frequently used and unsustainable raw material in the fashion industry.
Polyester makes up almost 70 percent of the textile market share today. Conventional polyester fabric is usually derived from petroleum and causes major ramifications to the environment. In fact, 35% of the microplastics found in our oceans stem from polyester garments. Furthermore, most polyester commonly found in clothes today is virgin, and there are several limitations to recycling polyester and thus closing the loop for circularity. Even though there are some sustainable options on the market that offer recycled polyester fabric from fish nets, also known as polyamide, most recycled polyester found on the market today is made of PET. While plastic in itself has the ability to be recycled several times when it is constrained to the form of PET bottles, however, when PET is utilized in recycling polyester in garments, the end of life occurs after being recycled once. After that, it becomes very difficult to recycle the same material again.
To add to this issue, big-scale capacity for textile-to-textile recycling of synthetic fibers does not exist. In many ways, highlighting that a garment is made from recycled polyester is a form of greenwashing as those PET bottles could have continued being recycled in the same value chain. In addition, as polyester is a fossil-based material, recycling only goes so far in solving the broader problem. Thus, we need to find other materials that can equal the positive aspects of polyester, while having a smaller impact on the environment. Renewcell’s new collaboration aims to develop a new filament yarn that can be used in place of polyester. Promising tests have shown that combining our Circulose® pulp with HeiQ’s cellulosic yarn HeiQ AeniQ can result in a strong and versatile textile that can act as a replacement for both conventional and recycled polyester. The global middle class is growing, and people around the world are lifted out of poverty. This is a very positive development and a testament to the fact that globalization can bring some hopeful changes. However, given this notion, the demand for clothes continues to surge by the decade. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the usage of polyester in textile production continues to increase. Given the evidence-based facts of the environmental harm the material contributes to, we need substitutes to meet the rising demand for comfortable and durable clothing. Through Renewcell’s partnership with HeiQ, we can expand the use of textiles that are entirely fossil-free, circular, biodegradable, and less energy intensive in production.
Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic that spread throughout our society. Polyester is a significant source of these particles. Photo by Sören Funk on Unsplash.
The need to find a substitute for polyester goes beyond just the fashion industry. The material exists in a wide range of products in everything from seatbelts to filters, films, ropes, fish nets, and wires. This versatile and wide-ranging usage of polyester presents the scope of the problem. In the same way as with polyester clothing, in the case of many of these products, recycled polyester is not durable, given that the recycling process reduces the quality of the plastic. Therefore, the need to create new materials to prevent plastic pollution and carbon emissions, which polyester is held responsible for, continues to be salient. Our CEO, Patrik Lundström recently said: “The challenge of how to use Circulose® as a direct substitute for oil in high tenacity performance fabrics has remained, until now.“ Through our partnership with HeiQ, we have come up with a solution for replacing polyester in the fashion industry, but we recognize that climate action is, at heart, a team effort. We hope that our partnership and subsequent innovation will inspire more companies and innovators to tackle other areas in which polyester plays a dominant role in production. We need to come together to solve this issue, and while Renewcell has found a replacement, all help is vital in order for us to reach the 2030 Sustainability Goals set by the UN. Let's make an industrial evolution together.
Patrik Lundström, CEO of Renewcell
If you have any ideas for partnerships we can create or actions we can take to reduce the use of polyester, please let us know in the comments below or through a climate idea.
For more information on our new partnership, read our press release. 
