It is a messy fabric that goes by many names and is frequently marketed as green. However, it has an enigmatic and turbulent history (and in the present). This raises a serious concern for the industry: is a sustainable alternative actually feasible on a large scale?
The past week, during the Future Fabrics Expo in London in the UK, among a variety of different options, two new textiles were marketed as possible next-generation of viscose.
Every year, 300m of trees are chopped down for the production of viscose rayon, according to the environmental non-profit organization Canopy.
Then, in April, Canopy received a $60 million grant from The Audacious Project (a Ted Talks-related funding initiative) to speed up the commercialization of the next-generation viscose derived from cotton waste, coconut water, citrus fruits grain straws, hemp, and molasses.
Canopy director Nicole Rycroft says they want to collaborate with companies to make 60 million tonnes of new products available in 2033. Rycroft says that they must focus upon “bold levels of change” to change the way that pulp is used (which encompasses packaging and paper as well) as it is the “fastest, easiest, cheapest way for us to stabilise our climate is to stop cutting forests down and keep them standing.”
We will look at two viscose options that are in the process of scaling up to commercial scale.
Viscose is made of recycled cotton.
According to Rycroft, the clothing waste industry is the most interesting alternative fuel source because it is so plentiful. “There are 100bn items of apparel produced every year and 60% of it is in landfill within 12 months,” Rycroft says.
Making old clothing into viscose does not come without the challenges. It is difficult to collect textile waste apart from drop-off locations and charities. There is a lack of infrastructure available to order it, and clothes must be separated manually or mechanically according to the type of fiber.
To be repurposed into viscose, the garments must be constructed of plant-based fibers such as linen, hemp, or cotton. The current technology is concentrated on processing cotton 100 since it is the most commonly used natural fiber.
Globally, there is a handful of companies using recycled textile technologies, like Evrnu, Sodra, and Lenzing. However, Rycroft mentions Renewcell, the Swedish textile recycling firm – as the most interesting. It is launching its first pulp mill to support next-generation viscose manufacturing. It will create more than 120,000 tonnes by the beginning of 2024, which makes its commercial capacity far greater than the other companies.
At Renewcell, 100% cotton clothes are broken down, and chemicals are employed to transform fragments into a slurry, which is bleached, dried, and then used to create cellulose sheets that feel and look like thin white cardboard. The sheets are then shipped away to be transformed into a viscose material that is subsequently converted into yarn.
The material that results is Circulose. Rycroft claims that when compared to conventional viscose, this process releases “5 tonnes less carbon per tonne of product than a conventional wood product and uses 90% less water and fewer chemicals”.
Circulose has made a few public appearances in the marketplace. The year 2022 was the first time Levi’s introduced a line of 501s with Circulose. Circulose blend. Also earlier in the year, Canadian music star Shawn Mendes, in her capsule collection to Tommy Hilfiger, featured a rugby shirt that was made of Circulose fibers.
At the Future Fabrics Expo, the Circulose material was displayed. It was like a heavy cotton jersey that had a little bit of stretch, but it did not have any of the smoothness lu,ster, or elasticity of lyocell or modal, as well as the warmness and lightness that comes from pure cotton.
The material is made up of recycled cotton and two pieces of virgin wood pulp. However, the reliance on pure materials is likely to decrease when the facility’s capacity for production and the technology used to make use of it within the supply chain develops.
Viscose derived from coconut water
In the context of the production of viscose, food waste is defined as the leftovers from large-scale industrial food processing, such as fruit peels or remains of beer brewing.
Nullarbor fiber, produced by Australian company Nanollose, is a new-generation viscose made of coconut water, which is a product in coconut production.
Its Nanollose director of operations, Wayne Best, says that the company can “in theory … use a whole pile of different types of food waste” to make the viscose-based cellulose so long as the material has sugar.
The cellulose is transformed into a dense material, which is then spun through spinnerets to create the translucent yarn, which is the main fiber in the lyocell.
Based on Valerie Langer, a strategist at Canopy as the process needs the least amount of water, land, or energy, and the production cycle lasts only 18 days long. The potential for scale is huge. This is different from other feedstocks from food waste like orange peels, which have limitations when it comes to ranking. The peel has to be refrigerated in order to stop the peel from turning moldy.
“You can actually get more fibre per hectare growing microbial cellulose than growing trees, because it grows in weeks rather than years,” she says.
Although Best claims that there will be a “small number of garments” made from coconut waste, it will be on the market at the time the year is over by the end of 2022. Nanollose established its ideas by launching its first wearable product – the jumper. The material that was on show at the London exhibition is soft, thin, and extremely flexible. It’s similar to a light lyocell or bamboo, which is suitable for wearing close to the skin, as you would wear sweatshirts or underwear. However, it’s not texture and drape that would allow it to be worn with other clothes like trousers or blouses.
Because the process is able to be used to treat other types, such as food waste, Nanollose plans to produce commercial quantities of Nullarbor fiber and to create an infrastructure and supply chain that revolves around waste food.