Contact us
CIRCULAR
SOLUTIONS
RESORTECS®
When it comes to the future of textile recycling, garment disassembly, and transitioning towards a circular economy, game-changers Cédric Vanhoeck, Vanessa Counaert, and their team at Resortecs® are innovating, collaborating, and exploring newfound ideas through non-stop research and development.
The concept: a heat-dissolvable stitching thread that allows ease of garment disassembly, to aid repair and recycling of textiles, as well as support progress towards a circular economy.
Recycling in the fashion and textile industry worldwide is a complex issue. The time, costs and manual labour required to disassemble garments back to their individual components have been a constant barrier hindering the uptake of garment recycling within the industry. As well as the need for advances in technology, to be able to recycle garments of multi-fibre compositions, dyes, and finishes to produce a safe product that isn’t simply downcycled.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, fewer than 1% of fibres produced each year is reprocessed to produce new garments, representing a large loss in value that could be otherwise captured.
Recognizing this challenge, Resortecs® has innovated a revolutionary future thread within the confines of circular design and waste reduction. Named ‘Smart Stitch’, Resortecs® dissolvable thread comes in multiple compositions such as polyolefins and bio-based nylon, which have been developed to diffuse when exposed to various levels of heat in accordance to the products end-use.
Image Credit - Resortec®
Image Credit - Resortec® | MAD Home of Creators
Resortecs® mechanical engineer William Allouche, “we hired him last summer, July 2019. He is working on the dismantling, so the heat dismantling tools and oven. To make sure when garments are stitched with our threads they will also be taken apart” says Cédric before sharing their vision of a large continuous oven in which garments can be dismantled at an average of 3 minutes. This oven will connect to an automatic sorting line, similar to Fibresort in Amsterdam.
The process of making this concept come to life, Cédric informs “is continuous non-stop enhancements” and it has been the Resortecs® teams persistent and passionate work ethic that has been the foundation to their growth.
Dissolvable threads
Image Credit - Resortec®
Since 2017, the year Cédric decided to devote his time to researching and testing the concept of Smart Stitch, Resortecs® has won the Global Change Award by H&M Foundation which aided further development through a year-long Innovation Accelerator Program.
From New York, to Hong Kong and Stockholm, the three-step accelerator program guided Resortecs® through a supportive system that allowed them to advance their technology and build a strong global network. Meeting different people involved in the same niche of sustainable fashion, clean technology and production was one of the many benefits of the program highlighted Cédric.
Image Credit - Resortec®
Image Credit - Resortec®
Resortecs® recognize partnerships and co-creating as a fundamental step towards building a circular economy, through shared ideas and resources. Revealing their first collaboration ‘Rebirth’ in November 2019, with additional Global Change Award Winner's Unspun. A pair of Unspun’s digitally-fitted, 3D woven denim jeans constructed with Resortecs® dissolvable thread was designed and developed, showcasing the best of both innovations and the importance of collective action towards sustainability.
Reflecting on the collaboration, Cédric recognized the partnership enhanced both start-ups, on a technical and environmental level, as well as growing their visibility in the business to the business sector of the denim industry.
In 2019 Resortecs® joined the Fashion for Good Accelerator Program, founded by C&A Foundation in association with numerous leading fashion companies such as Kering and Stella McCartney. Acceptance and participation in both accelerator programs have been pivotal in Resortecs® launch and continued development, however long-term financing for scalability and providing fashion companies with their solution is essential.
In a financing report published early in 2020 by C&A and Boston Consulting Group, raw materials and end of life regarding reuse and recycling are the main stages requiring investment along the value chain. They are also identified as the stages which receive the least venture capital interest, due to the complexity involved in understanding the innovation systems and longer lead times required for research and development before mass marketability. The report identifies the largest gap in financing is between start-ups moving from an initial pilot product to full-scale commercialization.
Image Credit - Resortec®
Image Credit - Resortec®
To further encourage and support recycling in the industry at a global level for a circular economy, investment opportunities at the start and end of the product lifecycle need to be captured and supported long-term. Resortecs® are currently in an investment round to raise €800 in convertible loans.
Another challenge Cédric recognizes for Resortecs® to solve is efficiently tracking the footprint of Smart Stitch threads, of which a traceability technology is currently being investigated. This is necessary in order for the disassembly stage to work smoothly, recognizing which threads have been used, to heat to the appropriate temperature. “We are working on the traceability of garments made with Resortecs® threads, as well as the communication on Resortecs® towards end-customers within the textile product.” Recently introducing Resortecs® Labels to allow garments to be identified visually.
“We are working on the traceability of garments made with Resortecs® threads, as well as the communication on Resortecs® towards end-customers within the textile product.”
Image Credit - Resortec®
Reinforcing the industry-wide challenge involved in textile recycling, of understanding what garments are made out of, where they have come from, how they have been dyed, processed, and finished.
Cédric explains how this poses a challenge to textile recycling in general “as sometimes with old garments, for example in the 80s that have been dyed with chemicals that are no longer accepted in the market, or in Europe under the REACH legislation they would not pass. If you thread them down and reuse them for garments, you are making new garments for the market with materials that are not legal, but you don’t know it, as you cannot see it in the garment or really assess it”.
Uniting as an industry to collaborate, to put a network in place for small to large scale fashion businesses to be able to build a traceable system along the entire value chain, Cédric views would be a step towards safe recycling. This requires, however, commitment from government worldwide, “preferably even global legislation on traceable garments, on the circular economy practice”.
Due to Covid-19, Resortecs® has been delayed in the development and testing of the disassembly line and industrialization of Resortecs® thread production. During this time Resortecs® has been a semi-finalist in the European Social Innovation Challenge and through workshops and mentoring helped to clarify Resortecs® social impact strategy for the future. “Based on the discussions on social impact, we built a massive social impact canvas in which different Sustainable Development Goals have been incorporated and several milestones mapped for the coming 10 years.”
Sneakers constructed using Smart Stitch and the industrial production of Resortecs® stitching threads in different colours for denim applications are on the horizon for Resortecs®. The long-term hope for this progressive thinking start-up is for Smart Stitch to become an industrial common, with a completely traceable thread. Collaboration, investing in start-ups from raw material and end of life stages, as well as global government reinforcement, is essential for the industry to advance towards circularity.
When asked what his one piece of advice to prospective textile innovators would be, Cédric responded “perseverance”, of which we are grateful, as Resortecs® continues to transform the industry with their humble perseverance.
Image Credit - RawAssembly Melbourne 2019 | Resortec®
“Based on the discussions on social impact, we built a massive social impact canvas in which different Sustainable Development Goals have been incorporated and several milestones mapped for the coming
10 years.”
Sneakers constructed using Smart Stitch and the industrial production of Resortecs® stitching threads in different colours for denim applications are on the horizon for Resortecs®. The long-term hope for this progressive thinking start-up is for Smart Stitch to become an industrial common, with a completely traceable thread. Collaboration, investing in start-ups from raw material and end of life stages, as well as global government reinforcement, is essential for the industry to advance towards circularity.
When asked what his one piece of advice to prospective textile innovators would be, Cédric responded “perseverance”, of which we are grateful, as Resortecs® continues to transform the industry with their humble perseverance.