Fashion for Good has launched the ‘Untapped Agricultural Waste Project’ to validate and scale technologies that can successfully transform agricultural waste into sustainable textile fibres. To be funded by Laudes Foundation, the project has been launched in partnership with adidas, Bestseller, Vivobarefoot and Birla Cellulose, and six innovators. The consortium project will assess the technical feasibility of natural fibres created by the selected innovators using agricultural waste such as rice husks, hemp, wheat straw, banana and pineapple.
The 18 month ‘Untapped Agricultural Waste Project’ leverages findings from their 2021 report, ‘Spinning Future Threads,’ authored by the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the World Resources Institute India and Wageningen University and Research. The report maps agricultural waste in eight countries across South and Southeast Asia, identifying the untapped opportunities in agricultural waste streams including rice husks, wheat straw, banana and pineapple production, which are the focus of this project.
The six fibre innovators, AltMat, Bananatex, Chlorohemp, Agraloop by Circular Systems, HempTex India and 9Fiber, will be further developing a variety of different natural fibres and fibre blends with a focus on trialling the highest percentage of agricultural waste, while also achieving the necessary performance requirements. Birla Cellulose will work closely with the innovators providing expertise to develop and prepare their new materials for wider adoption in the fashion supply chain, with the participating project brand partners supporting the testing and eventual scaling of these fibres.
This first phase of the project concludes in December 2022. To further drive supply chain adoption and move beyond lab scale, the next phase of the project will pilot the agri-waste fibres from selected innovators in collaboration with partner brands and supply chain players in commercial facilities to produce larger quantities. This next phase ultimately aims to further enable brand offtake agreements and financing to facilitate scaling.
