Sustainability
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 …
A reprieve for viscose as European Commission publishes new SUPD
Viscose fibers are no longer classified as “plastic” under the European Commission’s long-awaited guidelines on single-use plastic products, which were finally published on May 31 after several months of delay. Earlier drafts of the Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUPD), which aims to combat environmental problems caused by single-use plastic products, had categorized some regenerated cellulosic fibers …