United colours of waste – Brightfibers inside

The real challenge of circular textile – redesigning the system & bridging the post consumer gap

Circular textile is hot, but what does it exactly mean? Only 1% of all collections is made of recycled material. These recycled materials are mainly made from industrial waste or recycled PET bottle. But the real challenge we face is turning post-consumer material – old, discarded clothes- into high value new collections. The Embassy on Circular Textile shows us that circular textile and fashion is about system change. It’s about how we need to redesign the way we takeback old clothes, the way we sort and select and clean material. It’s about how we make new high value resources, yarns and fabric from local post consumer material. It is what we need to redesign and change now, to create a truly circular fashion industry.

Circular colors and the United Colors of Waste

Circular textile is not only about recycling many compositions and material-structures. It’s also about re-using and recycling the thousands of colors of our textile waste-mountain. Circular textile is about turning these old colors into beautiful new color ranges. Selecting the colors in a qualitative way, developing new color-pallets by blending old colors, Making sustainable choices: in the selection of colors, the blending of materials and the sustainable dyeing of colors. We developed and designed our colors based on not using water and chemicals and a minimum of dye stuff. In this way we make collection in all colors of the textile waste-mountain. “Re-designing future collection in the United Colors of Waste.”

The need for circular product innovation – Brightfiber sets the standard - presenting R&D findings

To make circular textile and fashion, we need to analyze and redesign our current collections and material usage, to be able to recycle them. To develop more circular collections and make more impact, yarn and fabric innovation using higher % of post-consumer inside is key. We worked 1,5 years on a project to develop more qualitative circular yarns and fabrics using the key streams and colors of the textile waste-mountain in our region. We worked together with different Dutch and European partners. The project was funded by the Province of the North of Holland (PNH). On the DDW2022 we will present our first findings and test results.