Sustainability
Recycling processes for the plastic waste from textiles
Plastics play a major role in our lives. They are widely used in many sectors and applications, but at the end of their lifecycle they become waste that needs to be managed properly. Given the steady rise in the consumption of plastic materials and the subsequent generation of huge amounts of waste, the European Commission …
Renewcell, Kelheim Fibres form collaboration to establish a European closed loop for sustainable textile fibers
Renewcell and Kelheim Fibres Gmbh recently signed a letter of intent to develop commercial production of viscose fibers from up to 10,000 tonnes annually of Renewcell’s 100% textile recycled material Circulose. The collaboration is exciting because it provides a vehicle for scaling fully closed-loop recycling and regeneration of sustainable textile fibers. Renewcell and its Circulose …
Eastman’s big response to the big, big problem of plastic waste
For most of the 20th Century, Eastman Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film – back in 1976 it had an 89% market share of all U.S. photographic film sales. The company began to struggle financially in the late 1990s as a result of the decline in sales of film and also its slowness …
Decoupling resource use from resource growth is the goal, says The Renewal Workshop
The textile and apparel industry’s linear business model of make, use and dump has been perfected over many decades and ensures that the 80 billion new pieces of clothing now produced each year are worn on average only four times. It’s an unacceptable status quo many are now trying to change, including The Renewal Workshop …
New SUPD guidance calls biopolymers ‘plastic’; yet PHA, PLA stakeholders remain optimistic for the long term
The European Commission’s Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) has been hotly debated since its initial publication in July 2019. While the aim of the legislation is a noble one – minimizing plastic waste in the environment – getting a firm grasp on what is, and what is not, a plastic has proven to be more challenging …