One of the biggest environmental and societal issues associated with fabric production is water use and contamination (it takes 3,000 litres of water to make one cotton shirt alone), so anything that reuses the water or even better, doesn’t use any fresh water at all, is a very good thing indeed. Enter fashion-meets-science brand Pangaia, whose newly developed silky C-FIBER️ fabric is part-seaweed, part-eucalyptus and 100 per cent biodegradable.
Growing naturally underwater, the seaweed requires no additional irrigation whatsoever, and is harvested on a four-yearly cycle, allowing for complete regeneration. Meanwhile, the eucalyptus, which grows quickly even in dry conditions, is processed into lyocell using a closed-loop system, which recycles 99 per cent of solvents rather than flushing them into the water system.
