Shay Sethi sorts boxes of old t-shirts and sweaters in his small factory near downtown L.A. His startup, ambercycle, recycles old polyester garments to create new fabric and has caught the attention of socially conscious consumers from around the world. Many regularly send him their worn pants and used jackets.
"This is insanity. We're not even doing any marketing" said the 27-year-old co-founder, who says he receives the unsolicited packages weekly.
The L.A. company might not be a household name, but it has pocketed millions in government grants and venture capital, and made a deal with clothing retail giant H&M to make recycled clothes.
<p>On Friday, five years after launching, the manufacturing business debuted a clothing line with local designer Come Back As A Flower partly made with their recycled polyester. Their model is Aleali May, the first female to design a unisex sneaker for Air Jordan. </p><p>"We started with this idea of 'can you take an old t-shirt and use those materials to just make a new t-shirt, instead of using materials from the earth like cotton or polyester'," he said.</p><p>Clothing retailers from Zara to H&M have slowly been trying to reduce their massive waste as pressure mounts from consumers, policymakers and activists.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg2MzQ0Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzQyMTEwNH0.A6EJHou9BMDAi04MqNPnCPGSozNK4Vk4ASFjhbvf2L4/img.jpg?width=980" id="29437" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7b5975cf4ad96b9606e4d4f564fe9a1b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Ambercycle" data-width="800" data-height="535" />
</p><p>Cheap, fast fashion has fueled Americans consumption of clothes. A sizable amount of that ends up in landfills — about 11.3 million tons of textiles in 2018, according to the most recent figures from the Environmental Protection Agency.<br/></p><p>Sethi said he is working with several large clothing retailers that are trying to figure out how to cut waste. </p><p>"I haven't found a single place that says, 'oh, we're not interested in moving to a more sustainable fashion industry'," he said. </p><p>Ambercycle was founded with government grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, which lists environmental sustainability as a national security threat. A few angel investors and funds, including Y Combinator, the Lemelson Foundation and H&M Foundation, also backed ambercycle's initial $4 million round. </p><p>It's attracted the interest of Swedish clothing giant H&M, an investor that's also looking to utilize ambercycle's technology in future collections. </p><p>Sethi and his co-founder Moby Ahmed began working on the idea as undergraduate students at UC Davis. Back then, the pair planned on selling their technology to big chemical companies. But they noticed that recycling and garbage processes in the textile and fashion industries were lagging behind. So they started a business instead. </p><p>But it's not easy. Their patented technology breaks down the molecules of textile waste to generate small polyester pellets. First, reactors built in their factory downtown separate the fibers of each item while removing dyes and stains. Those pellets are then spun into polyester yarn used to make new clothes.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-16x9">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg2MzgyOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMzM5ODMyN30.E0babWQbvMGZ-3iyDnYhiO2io5e9tz8kwpO2Ok_N7Gs/image.png?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C444%2C0%2C444&height=700" id="513f5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3d0480cd83cd16d280a90e0fab6220a3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Ambercycle" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Ambercycle's patented technology breaks down the molecules of textile waste to generate small polyester pellets.</small></p><p>The startup's factory downtown can process about 50 garments a day, mostly old shirts and textile waste or excess from big name businesses. It's hardly enough to make garments in mass. Even ambercycle's own clothes are 90% virgin polyester. To make 100% recycled polyester, Sethi would need a new factory.<br/></p><p>Sethi has plans to build a large commercial plant that can eventually manufacture 50,000 tons of material each year, the amount large garment factors typically produce. If he succeeds, it would be a rarity. Few clothing companies produce and source in the U.S.. Most instead rely on cheap overseas labor and material. </p><p>But the fundraising for that factory doesn't appeal to venture capital or other traditional sources, he said. </p><p>"The idea of building a plant is seen as unsexy," he said. "We haven't gotten too much interest from the traditional technology investor. This is not in vogue yet." </p><p>So, Sethi is looking elsewhere for funding as consumer interest in sustainable fashion brands grows. </p>
Related Articles Around the Web
Read more
Show less
Angelenos could soon see their trash become a large part of their trash cans.
Los Angeles-based manufacturing company Rehrig says it has engineered a way to integrate at least twice as much ocean-bound plastic into its new products as its competitors.
<p>The company is currently contracted with the city of Los Angeles to supply the garbage bins Angelenos use every day. </p><p>Several companies focus specifically on recycling ocean-bound plastics — waste that flows into the ocean from beaches or rivers. But Rehrig prides itself on creating plastics that are larger and thicker — known in the industry as "bulky rigid." No other company has been able to create the same durability from recycled material, according to Shannon Sackett, marketing project lead for Rehrig's Ocean Core carts.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUyMTA3My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2OTQ4ODI0N30.o6ySJl9ePwc_4qX07VPtnvCNUDC7_fMJ1Frgvg_o9P4/img.png?width=980" id="2e046" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e3bb0c1af0c3e711e29272354f5d8c30" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="901" data-height="900" />
<p>For plastics that are larger and thicker — known in the industry as "bulky rigid," competitors put in between 2-5% ocean-bound waste. Rehrig says they're now able to put in up to 10%. When mixing it with other types of discarded plastic, they can integrate up to 40% of recycled material into their design.</p><p>Founded in 1913, the company started to find the most efficient way to manufacture and deliver milk crates and pallets, then bread trays and beverage shells. In the 1990s they also focused their attention on creating recyclable and sustainable roll-out trash cans.</p>
<p>Rehrig currently offers a 10-year warranty on their rollout garbage bins, and that isn't changing with the introduction of ocean-bound recycled material. The newest line of carts is called the OceanCore cart, developed at Rehrig's Mexico location in partnership with the Atando Cabos project, located in Chile. They sourced a lot of local plastics from the fishing industry in Mexico, finding ways to recycle nylon nets.<br/></p><p>One major U.S. city — Rehrig hasn't yet disclosed which one — is expected to roll out these carts by the end of the year. The company hopes other cities will sign on when their current carts' warranties are up.</p><p>"For us, making sure that our carts can still sustain the quality is as much of a sustainability initiative as anything else," said Sackett. "You can put a bunch of recyclate into anything but it weakens the longevity of that item."</p><p>Recyclate is an industry term meaning raw material to be recycled.</p><p>Another great difficulty in using primarily recycled material is that it cannot be produced with the same intensity of color that virgin plastic can be. In order to get the iconic greens, blues, and even purple bins seen in Long Beach, Rehrig uses a technique called co-injection. </p><p>This process involves gathering recyclable material, which will be darker in color, for the inner layer of plastic, and then sandwiching it between two thin layers of virgin plastic. The virgin plastic can be created in any bright, vivid color, and printed with branding or other details. </p><p>The company is aiming its new technologies at coastal cities, which have higher access to ocean-bound plastic. </p>From Your Site Articles
- Upfront Summit: Bill Gross on Climate Change and Venture Capital ... ›
- LA's Clean Tech Startups Tackle Climate Change - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read more
Show less
LA Venture Podcast: Z Holly Of Good Growth Capital on Biotech, Education and the LA River
Oct 01 2020
On this week's episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, we have the super interesting guest (and person), Krisztina "Z" Holly. Before joining Good Growth Capital, she was vice provost for innovation at USC and the founding executive director for the M.I.T. Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. She also created the first TED X event and built a nonprofit to support manufacturing in Los Angeles. Her life might be best described as a Mountain Dew commercial.
<p>In this episode, Holly talks about how she hopes to boost innovation in Southern California's universities and in L.A. manufacturing and discusses her new project along the L..A River.<br/></p><p>"There is so much research happening in Southern California is like over $3 billion worth of research happening in the top research universities alone, let alone in the hospitals, etc. That in a large part of that is in biotech. And unfortunately, L.A. is seen as a flyover city when it comes to biotech," Holly says. "San Diego and the Bay Area are really strong — but the truth is that we actually in Southern California, we create more patents. [SoCal] universities create as many patents as the Boston area, and way more than the Bay Area."</p><p><span></span>Holly's <a href="https://www.rioreveals.com/" target="_blank">project with nonprofit River L.A.</a> enlists city artists to create immersive experiences that flow "through the past, present, and future L.A. River."<br/></p><p><em>"</em>If you think about one, a quarter of all Californians live within an hour drive of the L.A. River," she says. "The whole goal is to integrate design and infrastructure, to connect the communities and the people and the environment along the river. So it's really meant to tap into all the different opportunities for the community around the river."<br/></p><p><em>Click the playhead to hear the full interview, and subscribe on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/la-venture-venture-capital-vc/id1471701230" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/la-venture" target="_blank">Stitcher</a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2syPj1jttbIHjHIEwSrApH" target="_blank">Spotify</a><em> or wherever you get your podcasts to hear more from L.A. Venture.</em></p><p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this post erroneously stated she is still at USC. </em></p>
From Your Site Articles
- Los Angeles' Tech and Startup Scene is Growing. - dot.LA ›
- Wedbush Ventures' Petra Griffith on Investing in Community ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read more
Show less