Fast Fashion Waste Is a Big Problem and These Enzymes Could Help

It’s an endeavor that could reduce the hundreds of millions of garments that end up in landfills every year.

Transcript

00:00You've probably heard the phrase fast fashion before, describing the tendency of many to

00:07buy cheap clothing which is quickly thrown away.

00:10The habit has led to a polyester problem, but this UK firm is hoping to help curb at

00:14least some of that.

00:15This is Andy Pickford, professor at the University of Portsmouth.

00:18According to him, single-use plastics like those in plastic bottles have a relatively

00:22good recyclability rate.

00:24Clothing on the other hand, not so much.

00:27The recycling rates for textiles, when they reach their end of life, is very, very poor,

00:32typically less than 10%.

00:34So we have a major challenge here that we're trying to tackle.

00:36And major is a bit of an understatement, as 60% of all clothing manufactured is polyester,

00:42made from fossil fuels.

00:43So now their team is on the hunt for an enzyme that can literally eat polyester, breaking

00:47it down into its raw building blocks.

00:49And so far they've actually had some luck, identifying over 70 such enzymes.

00:54Now they're looking for the most efficient one.

00:56So we're looking, obviously we're looking for the enzyme that's the fastest that's going

00:59to break this down as quickly as possible.

01:02And we're looking for enzymes that sort of are stable at the temperatures that we want

01:06to work at in industry, which is usually around sort of 70 degrees.

01:11According to earth.org, over 100 million tons of clothing ends up in landfills every year.