By Hannah Rochell, Journalist

Synthetic fibres including polyester, polyamide, polypropylene, acrylics and elastane still dominate the global fibre market, accounting for around 67% of total production in 2023. Polyester – which is derived from a finite resource: oil – tops the list with a 57% market share. But could recent world events highlight the volatile nature of the feedstock that this fibre is made from, making it an additional factor for brands to take into consideration when choosing which fabrics and fibres to use in the production of their garments? Many fast fashion retailers that use a high percentage of polyester in their products have already warned that thanks to higher oil prices, their customers may in turn have to start paying more for their clothing.

As well as the oil itself, according to the World Economic Forum, monoethylene glycol (MEG), one of the key components for making virgin polyester, is a key commodity affected by the closure of the Straight of Hormuz. So perhaps those who have previously been reluctant to use more sustainable alternatives to virgin polyester because of the ease and low cost that this ubiquitous fibre offers will now be looking to switch to a more resilient option. And If so, there are some innovative, commercially scalable fabrics and fibres ready-and-waiting for them.

Lab-grown Biotech Yarns

Many conventional silk alternatives are made using petroleum-derived fibres including polyester and nylon. It keeps costs down, financially speaking, but there is a high environmental price to pay, with it being energy intensive to produce, using finite resources and releasing microplastics with every wash as well as, finally, into landfill if it isn’t effectively recycled. Brands could choose to avoid plastic and go natural with silkworm-derived fibres, however, their product then becomes vegan (and worm) unfriendly.

AMSilk, part of Global Fashion Agenda’s Innovation Forum, addresses both the environmental and animal welfare issues with an innovative, high class of biotech yarns that are produced with lab-grown silk proteins. They look and feel as luxurious as pure silk because that’s what they’re derived from, rather than oil, but being lab-grown, no animal is involved in their production. This has earned AMSilk certification from The Vegan Society.

At the same time, these fibres use less water, require less land and emit less carbon dioxide than conventional silk in their production. AMSilk yarns also boast being either fully recyclable or verifiably biodegradable at the end of their life, so there are no microplastics to worry about when the consumer has made good use of the product.

From Plants to Materials

Another pioneer is Leaf Bio, which uses a combination of renewable agricultural waste and recycled cotton to produce a modern alternative to traditional synthetics that is entirely fossil fuel-free. Natural sugars are extracted, then converted into FDCA, a building-block that is combined with bio-based glycol (an alternative to the aforementioned MEG) to form BioFleax™, a next generation, plant-based polyester.

One of the application is BioFleax™ fiber, Leaf Bio’s textile offering. It has excellent credentials: soft on the skin and breathable; three to five times better moisture management, and a 60% faster drying time than PET; naturally antibacterial and UV resistant. The entire life cycle has a reduced environmental impact when compared to fossil-based polyester at every stage, from spinning and dyeing, to end-of-life recycling. This in turn lowers energy use, carbon emissions, water pollution and soil contamination.

Taking Virgin Polyester out of the Loop

While 98% of recycled polyester was obtained from mechanically recycled PET bottles in 2023, there is increasingly a move to utilise the massive quantities of textiles that are currently wasted. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truckload of clothes is burnt or buried in landfill. That’s a whole lot of wasted feedstock. Textile-to-textile solutions are imperative to save the manmade fibres that are already in existence, especially when considering that only 1% of discarded clothing is currently recycled back into new clothing.

Enter the circulartech company RE&UP, which uses pre and post-consumer textile waste to recycle cotton, polyester and polycotton at industrial scale. It does this using a proprietary process which allows for less sorting and requires less specific material to feed its two recycling processes. The resulting high cotton content and high polyester content materials have a significant reduction in water usage and CO2 when compared to their virgin counterparts, thus performing as virgin fibers in industrial processing. As the first company in the textile industry to achieve Cradle to Cradle Certified® Circularity status across all of its products, RE&UP can also ensure that they are designed for continuous cycles of reuse, diverting them from ending up as a statistic in landfill.