Eastman and Debrand believe one brand’s trash is another’s treasure.
The Naia producer has teamed up with the next-life logistics company to foster textile-to-textile recycling solutions and make its branded cellulose acetate yarn.
Debrand collected 5,000 pounds of textile waste from one of its global brand clients (though it declined to say which, exactly, given the “experimental nature” of this project). Eastman will use its molecular recycling technology to recycle those 5,000 pounds of pre- and post-consumer apparel waste. This process breaks down the garments to their molecular building blocks. It uses this certified recycled material to create Naia Renew—circular fibers made from 60 percent sustainably sourced wood pulp and 40 percent recycled waste material via Global Recycled Standard-certified mass balance.
“Partnering with Debrand allows us to drive progress on our Naia sustainability goals, particularly to mainstream circularity by creating sustainable solutions for textiles that have reached end of life and turning them into valuable resources for new Naia Renew fibers,” said Claudia de Witte, textiles sustainability leader at Eastman. “This collaboration underscores our commitment to work closely with key collectors and sorters to drive the necessary infrastructure changes for advancing sustainability in the fashion industry.”
The duo—who partnered earlier this month on circular lanyards for the Sustainable Fashion Forum in Austin—want to address the textile waste crisis by showcasing the “transformative” potential of molecular recycling. Eastman takes deconstructed waste and shreds it before melting it into pellets. Those pellets are then pulverized into a powder that’s processed through a carbon-renewal technology process—aka, what brings garments back to the molecular level. From there, those basic molecules are combined with the wood pulp to form cellulose acetate flakes. The flakes are liquified and spun into fibers.
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Debrand is “excited” to collaborate with the Tennessee-based firm again on this “innovative” pilot project to create “building blocks” toward systems of sustainability, according to Lina G. Londono, Debrand’s vice president of sustainability.
“We took on this project with an intentional and iterative approach that would reach meaningful milestones,” Londono continued. “This project was designed to offer scalability and accessibility for other brands that would want to participate in the future.”
In February, Eastman tackled 8,000 pounds of textile waste from Patagonia to create sustainable fibers from unusable pre- and post-consumer textile waste collected over the course of a year.
Earlier this month, Eastman was tapped by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as one of the 33 funding recipients through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. The DOE’s investment will feed into operations that prepare mixed waste plastic for processing as well as the construction of Eastman’s second onshore molecular plastics recycling facility.