Today’s fashion industry is faced with a great challenge – textile waste. Fast fashion and accelerated trend cycles have led to mounting clothing waste and few solutions to solve it at scale. Industry innovators like the Finnish clothing brand Pure Waste are eager to help solve this problem by offering clothing made from recycled fibers. A new type of recycling based on chemistry could help make this happen.
At Kemira, we have deep expertise in chemistry for recycling paper and board. Now our innovation experts are applying this know-how to textile recycling, which could help the fashion industry reduce its environmental footprint and scale up apparel made from fully-recycled fibers.
We recently had the pleasure of talking to two experts on our podcast, Chemistry with a purpose:
- Jukka Pesola, founder and chairman of the board of Pure Waste
- Kaisa Karisalmi, an expert from Kemira who specializes in chemistry for recycling fibers
Pure Waste was among the first companies to offer high-quality, fully-recycled garments – something that most fashion brands thought was impossible at the time. Now Pure Waste is exploring ways to further improve and enhance textile recycling, including the potential for chemical recycling.
According to our scientist Kaisa, “The most exciting part is the functional chemistries. For example, how can you modify the fiber in a way that it will reach the quality requirements from a strength perspective?”
To hear Jukka and Kaisa share more about textile recycling, the trends, and innovation in the area, listen here on our website, or find our show on Apple, Spotify or Google Play.
