- Honor Years:
- 2019
About Sustaining Voices
Sourcing Journal’s Sustaining Voices celebrates the efforts the apparel industry is making toward securing a more environmentally responsible future through creative innovations, scalable solutions and forward-thinking initiatives that are spinning intent into action.
Overview
Ambercycle extracts polyester at the molecular level from mixed-fiber garments and spins it into new yarn.
Deep Dive
Akshay Sethi is sick of plastic pollution. “Plastic pollution is a horrid embarrassment to humanity,” he said. “We should be ashamed of ourselves.”
As the CEO of Ambercycle, a California startup he co-founded with Moby Ahmed, Sethi envisions a world where end-of-life resources are directed back into the supply chain in a “100 percent circular, 100 percent infinite” manner.
Handling synthetics in this way is a particular focus for the company. (Polyester, Sethi notes, has surpassed cotton “by far” as the material most commonly employed in apparel worldwide.) Ambercycle’s “elegant” three-step process extracts polyester at the molecular level from mixed-fiber garments and spins it into new yarn. Already, it has created what Sethi claims is the world’s first textile product derived entirely from cast-off clothing.
Ambercycle, which was formerly known as Moral Fiber, is currently piloting its technology at a plant in Los Angeles, where it processes around 220 pounds of clothing scraps from local businesses every day. All of the necessary equipment fits into a small shipping container, or “box,” that can be dispatched to any location and integrated into an existing supply chain in a “bolt-on fashion,” Sethi said. The box can draw its power from solar panels placed on its roof or through the incineration of leftover material. At peak consumption, the entire transformation process requires between 45 to 50 amps of power.
While Ambercycle’s box currently handles only textiles, Sethi can imagine creating future boxes for plastic packaging, carpets and “all sorts of different materials.” His overarching goal is to “incentivize material flows” away from overbrimming landfills so nothing is truly wasted.
“We need to solve this problem as soon as possible,” he said. “The time to act is now.”
In what areas has the fashion industry made the biggest strides in sustainability in the last five years?
"The rise of challenger brands with sustainable or circular imperatives has really demanded change at a mass, global level. As consumers become more aware of fashion's environmental impact, we hope to continue to see a push toward a multipronged approach in tackling current behaviors—from reducing the amount we buy to researching best streams for recycling."