Blue Cast: Baber Sultan on Artistic Milliners’ Mechanically Recycled TENCEL™
Blue Cast is a podcast series from the TENCEL™ Denim team. Each episode features a conversation with a special guest from within the industry or the fringes of the denim community. The following is a recap of episode 401.
Recycled cotton has become commonly used in the denim industry to repurpose the inevitable waste created in the spinning, weaving and garment making processes. But as Pakistan-based mill Artistic Milliners has shown, this circular concept can go beyond cotton.
The manufacturer has launched a mechanical recycling concept using TENCEL™ Lyocell. As Baber Sultan, director of product and research at Artistic Milliners, explained to Tuncay Kilickan, head of global business development – denim at Lenzing, during our latest episode of our Blue Cast podcast, the mill is a large customer of TENCEL™ fibers, which leaves it with sufficient volumes of lyocell waste to repurpose.
“Why not take that TENCEL™ waste, which is still a very valuable fiber, and mechanically recycle it and put it back into the product?” Baber noted.
Compared to other methods—such as chemical recycling—mechanically recycling TENCEL™ is lower impact. “It’s dry, you don’t have any chemicals involved, you don’t have any water involved,” said Baber. “You don’t need those resources, so it’s a very clean process of recycling, very sustainable.”
Mechanically processed TENCEL™ fibers can be used in similar ways to mechanically recycled cotton. However, Baber pointed out that TENCEL™ Lyocell actually starts with better tenacity than cotton. This leads to a better fiber length for reused lyocell, helping to avoid some issues that mechanically recycled cotton can face. For instance, shorter fiber lengths sometimes require mills to use a higher twist to improve strength and other properties, resulting in worsened hand feel. “Mechanically recycled TENCEL™ is very similar to the cotton process, but the only difference is, it’s slightly better than that,” said Baber.
This process also results in neppy looking fabric with a better-than-expected hand feel. “TENCEL™ is now a household name in so many countries; it’s a cellulosic regenerated fiber, which has a little bit of sheen and softness, and it’s amazing,” said Baber. “This fabric looks like very authentic, neppy. But when you touch it, it is extremely soft.”
Artistic Milliners has made a small capsule of six to seven garments that come from a single spinning stream. The fabrics available for companies to purchase are made from pre-dyed, post-industrial waste.
To-date, Artistic Milliners has only made indigo, but it is considering adding black fabric options. It is also looking into possibly blending mechanically recycled TENCEL™ with other fibers, such as recycled cotton.
Although this concept is commercialized, it is still a niche option. Doing the math, if Artistic Milliners makes fabric with 20 percent mechanically recycled TENCEL™, it can make 10,000 yards per month. Comparatively, the mill has the capacity for 11 million meters of fabric each month. The volume of mechanically recycled TENCEL™ textiles available will partly depend on the amount of virgin TENCEL™ orders, since more lyocell to begin with will create more waste inputs.
Baber explained that a range of weights could be made—from 8 to 14 oz., and recycled TENCEL™ fabrics could be produced with or without stretch.
Artistic Milliners has submitted documentation to Control Union to get its mechanically recycled TENCEL™ fabrics certified under the Global Recycle Standard, which it expects to receive in the next few months.
This latest move builds on the mill’s decade-long history of recycling cotton. A recent investment is Circular Park, an approximately 3-acre facility dedicated to recycling.
Listen to the full conversation here.