Trash into treasure
Could proteins provide the building blocks for a new fibre to rival polyester and silk? Bloom Labs believes it has found a solution.
“I’m on mission to replace polyester,” says Bloom Labs founder Sim Gulati. The bold statement from the US entrepreneur comes after years of witnessing the material’s impact first-hand through working with his family’s factories in India and Asia — not only in the way it uses up non-renewable resources and its subsequent proliferation in the environment, but also how artificially low prices have driven the fast-fashion phenomenon and resulted in a glut of over-consumption and overproduction.
Graduating with an economics degree at Oxford University combined with his family history in textiles enables him to “connect the dots” between fashion and sustainability, he says. His previous start-up, Dropel, created a waterproof coating for cotton that won backing from Fashion for Good, but it became clear a fresh idea was needed to make impact at scale. “I realised that, just as there needed to be alternative foods to combat the carbon impact of meat, there also needed to be alternative textiles to combat the effects of the textiles industry, which accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions and 35% of microplastic pollution in waterways. I’m looking at the macro trends of demand increasing as the population increases and I realise there needs to be a new feedstock, but where there is no feedstock risk.”
His new company, Bloom Labs, claims it has found a solution in proteins. It has licensed intellectual property on protein research from universities and received funding from the National Science Foundation, the innovation arm of the US government. Dr Walter Schmidt, a US Department of Agriculture scientist who has patented plasticised proteins, joined as an advisor at the start of this year. “I knew the feedstock had to come from agricultural waste, because that sector is so enormous,” explains Mr Gulati. “The feathers we are using come from textile producers like pillow manufacturers that have excess waste, we use soy proteins as well as textile waste and cashmere, linen and wool that we can regenerate.”
Bloom’s proprietary technology uses bio-manufacturing, protein engineering and molecular biology to plasticise the waste, regenerating it into pellets. These can then be spun into high-performance fibres that Bloom describes as being “as plush as cotton, as lush as silk and as functional as polyester”. Its system treats the protein fibres as thermoplastics, although they are 100% biobased. Pellets can be shipped around the world, ready for manufacturers to drop into melt spinning lines and create the fibre. “That’s one of the reasons we selected proteins based on plasticising and melting proteins, so that it can be a drop-in replacement for polyester production lines, with the same efficiency and the same scalability.”
Protein shake
Mr Gulati is targeting two markets: replacements for polyester and silk — polyester because it makes up around half of fibre use for clothing, according to the Textile Exchange, and silk because it has the highest carbon emissions and cost per kilogram. “Proteins are highly malleable and we can control the aesthetic and mechanical properties. Through processing we can make our proteins behave the way we want them to behave.” Mr Gulati estimates there is 6 billion kilograms of this kind of bio waste available annually.
The resulting fibre could be used on its own, or blended, and one of the bonuses will be the potential for biodegradability at the end of the clothes’ useful life. Bloom will be conducting a lifecycle analysis later in the year to measure the impacts. “We're using proteins because they are ubiquitous in nature and they biodegrade. Similarly, many of the additives that we're using are amino acids that are found in nature, so we believe that through recycling we can accelerate the degradation process, not only accelerate it but reuse the material and have perpetual utilisation opportunities.”
Agriwaste model
Like most new materials, the cost will be higher than that of polyester but, at scale, he believes it will be competitive. “It will be cost competitive with recycled polyester, that's something that we're quite excited about,” he adds, suggesting it could be cheaper than silk and cashmere but with added desirable qualities such as being washable. The agriwaste model could also suit local supply chains and reshoring, as there are waste facilities all over the world.
The appetite for finding sustainable fibres and materials is driven partly by changing consumer attitudes, by brands and their commitments to reducing emissions and to Sustainable Development Goals targets, but it will also be shaped by regulations, in time. “This next decade or so will be the time when brands will be trying to use sustainable materials if they are available. I think that’s the key thing: scalability and availability has been a challenge because sustainability is not as cost effective and it's not as scalable and so brands are reluctant.”
For the time being, he says the as-yet unnamed technology has been proven to work and it is now a question of larger-scale development through various partners. The company is setting up a lab in north-eastern US and is putting together a consortium of brands and early adopters to test the technology and mould it around their needs.
“I think it's incredibly important that as brands get more interested in sustainable solutions that they be economically viable, for everyone in the supply chain, not just brands and the material supplier but also the manufacturer,” he adds. “Consumers want to see sustainable materials and have a have a better understanding of where materials are coming from. I only see that increasing over time.”
Bloom Labs is using waste feathers as feedstock for its new fibre.
CREDIT: Julian Hanslmaier/Unsplash
