The Lycra Company is stretching its sustainable offerings with a hot new fiber, Thermolite EcoMade, and said the fiber is made from 100 percent textile waste, replete with a new warming technology, making it a standout solution in the market.
Its sustainable fiber product uses textile waste as an input to make commercial performance fibers, the company said, while it simultaneously provides a solution to help the industry deal with its textile waste problem, as well as creating a starting point for circularity, they explained.
The company said its Thermolite Ecomade “adds a new dimension” to sustainable lightweight warmth in cold-weather apparel and gear. Its warming technology involves recycling textile waste from cutting room floors that would have otherwise been sent to a landfill or incinerated, and instead, transforms it into high-performance fibers for insulation.
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First, fabric scraps are collected from garment-makers; next, they go through a four-step process before becoming a finished product, which includes: depolymerization and refining; chip manufacture; fiber formation, and batting and insulation production.
Arnaud Ruffin, vice president, brands and retail at The Lycra Company, said its new textile waste fiber “can be used in unique batting constructions to deliver outstanding warming performance infused with unparalleled sustainable attributes.”
“We are initially promoting the fiber in two versions of insulation — both thin-loft and mid-loft battings, each made with more than 85 percent of recycled fibers, including [approximately] 50 percent Thermolite fiber made from recycled PET bottles, and more than 35 percent made from the new textile waste product.”
Ruffin added, “Both batting offerings deliver durability and outstanding levels of performance combined with unmatched sustainability credentials for the outdoor industry, while warmth per unit weight and other insulation characteristics meet the industry’s highest expectations.”
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