Future of fabric – liquids

87% of all textiles end up in landfill.

With stats like this, it’s no wonder that a sustainable revolution is rising in the world of fashion.

In this blog series, we’re looking at innovative and experimental techniques at the forefront of producing environmentally-friendly textiles.

In part one we discovered how food waste from pineapples, and fungus from mushrooms, can be transformed into biodegradable fabric.

This week we’re focusing on clothing that’s made using liquids. Yep, you read it correctly – liquid clothing.

Sounds a little ‘Emperor’s new clothes’? Read on 👇

Cream of the crop

German company Qmilk has developed an extremely green way to produce fabric from discarded milk proteins.

Founder of Qmilk Anke Domaske sought chemically untreated clothing for her unwell father. Starting with a blender in her home kitchen, she adapted pre-existing methods for making wool from milk protein.

It can be used to make numerous wool varieties, cotton, cellulose or synthetic yarn.

The milk protein used by Qmilk is a by-product that’s not suitable for human consumption. This amounts to two million tonnes of waste in Germany each year.

The process is water- and energy-efficient and the final product uses 100% renewable materials along with the wasted milk protein.
What more could you ask for?

Oh, almost forgot. If you give it a few weeks it’s completely biodegradable – no surprises that this won the Green Tec Award for production in 2015.

Wearable wine – not a drinkable dress

I know what you’re thinking. A dress made from red wine? What a waste of red wine! Well, we all need to make sacrifices for the environment.

Look on the bright side, there’ll be no more anxiety over spilling red wine on your evening dress when it’s made of the stuff. #Smart

This cotton-like fabric was ‘grown’ in the Bioalloy Laboratories of the University of Western Australia. It’s created using a colony of the bacteria Acetobacter (which ferments wine into vinegar) to produce the ‘cotton-like’ fabric.

While the research team initially started creating the fabric with red wine, they’ve reportedly now moved on to producing it from fermented white wine, beer and even Guinness.

Sounds like the kind of idea that comes from a student beer garden to us…🍷🍻😉

Though the dress may not be gracing the catwalk quite yet, it’s certainly an exciting and innovative process.

Cheers!

Have you been on the hunt for sustainable materials?

We’re huge fans of brands and designers who are dedicated to producing environmentally-friendly products.

If you’ve been working with recycled, upcycled or sustainable materials, send us a snap on Twitter or Instagram and we’ll share it on social media.

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