Evrnu debuts recycling tech with adidas hoodie

NEW YORK – US tech business, Evrnu, has debuted its recycling technology, NuCycl, with the launch of a limited run of recyclable, unisex hooded sweatshirts for Adidas by Stella McCartney. NuCycl is the firm’s first commercially available technology which converts old cotton garments into high-quality materials. The garment is designed to be disassembled so it can be, “returned to the NuCycl system.”

The process for NuCycl begins with discarded clothing being diverted from landfill and sorted. Garments are disassembled, shredded, and broken down to the molecular level. The raw materials are engineered into a new fibre profile, which is then spun into yarn by selected mills.

We understand Levi Strauss and Stella McCartney are among four global brands which intend to launch lines using Evrnu’s technology in the coming months.

Exciting times.

The new garments will be given to athletes but won’t be available for purchase. Evrnu said it plans to bring the fibre to market in 2020 and make it available to fabric mills and clothing makers globally.

NuCycl, “essentially turns old clothing into new, high-quality raw materials for the creation of new clothes,” says Stacy Flynn, cofounder and CEO of Evrnu.

“We had to look at things differently and we knew that our technologies must significantly reduce impacts to natural resources, provide consumers with a better experience and by design keep our industry healthy into the future,” she added.

Levi Strauss and Stella McCartney are among four global brands which intend to launch lines using Evrnu’s ground-breaking technology.

Last year, when we spoke to Flynn, she told us the past four years has been about building its technology, and that it will be trialling this exclusively with four brands during 2019.

The goal is to have all four brands, which also include an unnamed athletic-wear brand, retailing recycled lines by the end of 2019, while Evrnu itself will begin building capacity at scale by 2020.

The business told us last year it will be going down the licensing route with its technology.

In an update at the launch of the Stella McCartney line, Apparel Insider asked Stacy Flynn about pricing and, particularly whether this new technology will be able to compete with the current market mainstream fibres. She told us: “We have to think differently about the value over time rather than how inexpensive we can make things; we are working closely with our early adopters on this as well.

“We are licensing our tech and conducting trials throughout 2019 with scaling partners. Our cost comparison is anticipated to be high for the first 60 months; this can’t be an apples to apples comp as the product using our tech is being designed to be disassembled in the future. If we assume natural resources will increase in value our tech is designed to flatten this premium compared to current fibre prices.”