Last summer, we featured vegan leather and discussed how these products can improve sustainability in apparel, accessories, auto, and more, along with the pros and cons of various types claiming to be vegan. More recently, we again discussed the unnecessary consumption and waste generated by the industry’s push to fast fashion, and suggested that the only way to deter this business model is for consumers to take control, as they have in so many other wasteful industries. These are all good approaches to making the industry more sustainable and kinder to the planet.

Another key development along these lines is the use of different types of natural and recycled fibers that can become the primary component of fabric destined for clothing, décor, automotive, and many other sectors.

One interesting project is underway at Lycra as reported by WTIN (subscription may be required). Lycra is perhaps better known by its generic names spandex or, primarily in Europe, elastane. Back in the day, your jeans were probably 100% cotton. But as we saw waistlines expanding and consumers looking for more comfort in the form of stretchy fabric, you would probably be hard-pressed to find jeans that don’t contain some percentage of spandex. Comfortable, yes. Sustainable, not really. Fabric made of mono-fiber construction is easier to recycle, but not that much textile is actually recycled anyway. According to recent data from BBC Future, “globally, an estimated 92 million tons of textiles waste is created each year and the equivalent to a rubbish truck full of clothes ends up on landfill sites every second. By 2030, we are expected as a whole to be discarding more than 134 million tons of textiles a year.” The story states that the current fashion system uses high volumes of non-renewable resources to produce clothes that are used only for a short period of time before they are incinerated or placed in landfills.