Recycling and circularity - these are two big buzzwords of our time and at the same time two super important topics that fashion designers in particular are grappling with.
First, perhaps a general overview: Recycling means bringing waste from production or even waste that is created after things have been used back into a cycle and making it usable. The original product is modified and used elsewhere. Prominent examples are certainly food packaging or PET bottles. For the three pillars of sustainability, which encompass social, ecological and economic aspects, recycling strategies are very important with a view to future coexistence and economies, as they bring together many social and ecological issues.
Qualitatively, recycling can be divided into upcycling and downcycling. In downcycling, the value of the material decreases in the process of remanufacturing. This continues as often as the quality of the newly created product is still sustainable, but always means that the product wears out more and more - and yet downcycling is better than having to use completely new resources.
Upcycling means the reverse process: the raw material is upgraded and no new raw materials have to be added. Especially in the textile sector, there have been labels for years that have dedicated themselves completely to upcycling, and at the latest with the summer of 2021, the method has also arrived at Balenciaga and other high fashion labels. Other examples are Ahluwalia or Duran Lantink.
Another principle that has been increasingly widely noticed and implemented for years is cradle-to-cradle, a strategy that is all about cycles - and about developing structures that think about design, use and take-back in equal measure. In the case of Mide, this means thinking about later recyclability as early as the pattern-making process and the selection of materials - and trying out systemic approaches. Ina Budde from circular.fashion has been researching these topics for years and has now presented very innovative concepts, which you can take a closer look at here.
You may remember that we also made our first steps with recycled materials a few years ago. In 2018, we had launched sweat fabrics with recycled polyester, but took them out of the range again after a relatively short time. The reason was and is that the recyclability aspect is not there. Léa Gejer, who is an architect and urban planner, aptly said at a conference during Zero Waste Week in Sao Paulo: "A good example is the plastic bottle. We spend a lot of energy to produce it. Let's suppose we decide to recycle that bottle by mixing it with cotton to make a T-shirt. What happens is that we will mix two primary materials. One from the biological cycle (cotton) with one from the technical cycle (which comes from the industry). When you add the two types of material, you create what we call a hybrid material. And to recycle this hybrid product, you have to reduce the quality from both the cotton and the plastic bottle. And that is downcycling." (The difference between recycling and circular economy - radio interview (flockcircular.com.br)
Currently, in order to approach recycling from a new direction, we are featuring recycled cotton in some fabrics. These are obtained by our producers as spinning waste, so they are fallen fibers that fall out in the process of spinning. As pre-consumer waste, they are combined with organic cotton yarn so that the tensile strength of the resulting yarn still remains high. In perspective, we think it makes a lot of sense to increasingly implement such processes - and we are glad that our producers are following suit. Specifically, a new mercerized interlock quality (M-I233-0388n and M-I233-1147) and a mottled, lightweight woven quality (SOM-0010-3) are waiting for you. The latter is woven in Portugal. The weft of the fabric is 50% post-consumer cotton from Spain, the other 50% is organic cotton.
