Using living organisms as raw materials, clothing, environmental protection and fashion still need to be promoted

When a piece of clothing is worn or outdated, it is often thrown into the trash can; data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that in 2014, all urban solid waste generated in the United States accounted for 9% of clothing.

The clothes we discarded were greatly blocking the landfill. The European Commission also associates the modern garment industry with the speed and quantity of garment production and sales, often referred to as “quick fashion” – associated with high energy and water use, severe greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution.

Now a small but growing innovator is turning to natural materials, trying to get rid of the waste and pollution of the garment industry from the source: at the source: they use living organisms in the laboratory to make biodegradable textiles, Create environmentally friendly materials – even without factory assembly, you can produce some near-finished clothing.

Many of today's garments are woven from plastic acrylic, nylon or polyester threads and cut and sewn at the factory. All of these materials are chemical and not biodegradable. But these researchers believe that some of the future garments may be bioengineered—made by living bacteria, algae, yeast, animal cells, or fungi—and when they are eventually discarded, they break down into non-toxic substances. Theanne Schiros, an assistant professor of mathematics and science at the Fashion Institute of Technology/FIT, says the approach can reduce waste and pollution. In addition to biodegradability, another major benefit, she said, is that many of the organisms involved can grow to the extent required for the clothing model—the exact amount of textile needed to make a garment without producing Excess disposable material. “In materials science, we are now discovering more inspiration in nature by looking for a large number of fast-growing creatures from nature,” she said. ”

The creature chosen by Schiros is algae. With it, she and a team of FIT students and faculty created a yarn-like fiber that can be dyed and woven into non-chemical pigments such as insect shells. Schiros says there are three steps in making algae yarns: First, a sugar called alginate is extracted from seaweed - alginate is a multicellular algae - and sprinkled with powder. The alginate powder is then converted into a hydrogel into which the color of the plant (eg carrot juice) is added. Finally, the gel is stretched into strips of fibers that can be woven into a fabric.

Schiros said that her experiments show that seaweed fiber, as a promising bioengineered garment material, has strong flexibility, which is the two basic characteristics of mass clothing. Chinese materials scientists point out that algae fibers have natural fire resistance and may reduce the need to add toxic flame retardants to clothing. Moreover, algae biodegrade faster than cotton (the most common natural fabric fiber), and its growth does not require insecticides or large areas of land. Schiros uses her fiber to weave her clothes, including the vest she wore at the TED talk about sustainable fashion this year. Schiros and her FIT colleague AstaSkocir won the "Bio Design Challenge" in 2016. Later, she co-founded a company called Algiknit, hoping to one day produce garments that use algae as raw materials on a commercial scale.

Schiros also explored the use of bacteria to make clothing materials; in 2017, some of her students developed a pair of baby-sized moccasins using liquid bacterial cultures, fungi and degradable waste. The bacteria grew into a fibrous "bio-leather" mat that was finally filled with a shoe-shaped mold to form a complete pair of Shoes. Later, they used avocado seeds and indigo leaves to make dyes, colored the shoes, embedded carrot seeds in the shoes, and dried them. According to Schiros, “this method avoids waste during the production phase.” She added that because the shoes are degradable and contain seeds, “When your child grows up, the shoes don’t fit, you can They planted in the ground and began preparing for the next pair of shoes.” Her students (professing the “GROWAPAIR team”) presented their ideas for the first time at the Biodesign Challenge Summit last year. The Biodesign Challenge Summit is a bioengineering competition for college students at the Museum of Modern Artin New York City.

Schiros said that another fast-moving fashion environment problem that bioengineering can solve is dye. According to the Swedish Chemicals Agency, commercial textile printing uses approximately 3,500 synthetic chemicals, including lead and petroleum-based substances. Among them, the agency found 2,400 artificial chemicals in finished clothing. According to the agency, 5% of the chemicals found are potentially hazardous to the environment, and 10% of the 2,400 chemicals found in finished garments can be harmful to human health. The colorants which adhere these to the fabric usually also require the use of toxic solvents, curing agents, salts and large amounts of water. Laboratory animals exposed to these dyes exhibit adverse health effects, including allergic reactions as well as reproductive and growth problems. The US Environmental Protection Agency announced that a common clothing dye component, benzidine and its derivatives, "are reasonably presumed to be human carcinogens." The EU bans the import of dyes containing this substance as well as other so-called "azo" dyes. These chemicals may penetrate the skin from clothing and are also found in the wastewater of textile dye factories, which are usually discharged directly into the environment without treatment.

Some researchers believe that bacteria may also help to alleviate dye problems. Innovators including Textile LabAmsterdam co-founder Cecilia Raspanti, textile and design studio Kukka boss Laura Luchtman, biodesign lab and creative research institute FaberFutures founder Natsai Audrey Chieza are using natural pigment bacteria to dye natural and bioengineered textiles. Luchtman said her process involves autoclaving to prevent contamination and then pouring the liquid medium filled with bacterial nutrients onto the textile in a container. Next, she exposed the soaked textiles to bacteria and placed them in a temperature-controlled room for three days. Finally, she disinfected the textile, rinsed with a mild detergent, washed away the smell of the bacterial culture medium, and allowed it to dry. According to Chieza, bacterial dyes can be applied to a variety of colors and patterns, are non-toxic, and require at least a 20% reduction in moisture.

However, the use of this technology to replace textiles made from non-biodegradable rayon and dyes made from problematic chemicals still presents significant challenges. Schiros says that producing bioengineered materials that are sufficiently resistant to normal wear and tear is a major obstacle. She tried to overcome this problem by using local preservation techniques to process some of her textiles—such as tanning with smoke rather than chemicals—that she said made her bio-leather more intense and water-resistant.

So far, these environmentally friendly textiles have been limited to laboratories, science competitions and high fashion T-stages. But researchers who promote these innovations say that it is only a matter of time before these innovations are introduced into the consumer market in some form. Chieza said that the first problem to be solved is to make the cost of bioengineering garments comparable to traditional clothing. For example, Luchtman sells bacterial dyed silk scarves for $139, while similar traditional dyed silk scarves cost only $10. Chieza said: "Compared with the debate surrounding renewable energy, cost competition depends not only on reliable science and effective technology, but also through government subsidies and a spiritual shift to R&D investment."

Melik Demirel, director of the Center for Advanced Fiber Technology Research (CRAFT) and professor of engineering at Pennsylvania State University, agrees that it may take some time for biodesigned apparel to enter the consumer market. But he said that if the production process can be expanded, its benefits will outweigh the challenges. “Protein or glycosyl fibers are naturally degradable and can be recycled in nature,” he points out.

In addition, the designers who supported the study said that textiles could be reused before being sent to a composting facility for biodegradation. Repairing or reusing textiles and dyes over and over again can delay their turning into waste and is the main principle guiding the production of bio-textiles and non-chemical dyes for dyeing.

SuzanneLee is the founder of Biofabricate, the annual Biodesign Summit, and the founder of a biodesign consulting firm called Biocouture in London. “In order for the consumer goods to continue, the materials used must begin to be recycled and become a raw material for the fashion sector,” said Lee. “In the design process, they should not be destined to be thrown into landfills; all of us, especially designers, should work hard for this change.