Currently, the world is discarding a truckload of textiles every second. Yet there is a notable lack of scalable infrastructure to manage end-of-life textiles. That’s where Debrand comes in.
Textiles are “one of the leading sources of waste, with plastic-based materials such as polyester being more difficult to recycle than regular plastics,” according to B.C. nonprofit Alacrity Canada.
To counter this concern, Debrand has “implemented sustainable recycling practices and innovative initiatives to divert textiles from ending up in landfills,” the org says.
In 2022, circular economy innovator Debrand received a strategic investment from WM, North America’s largest environmental solutions provider. Some of that capital went toward Debrand’s new Surrey headquarters in 2023, including a 21,000-square-foot facility leveraging cutting-edge textile sortation technology at scale.
Less than one year after that, Debrand opened their first U.S. facility in Ohio. The 32,000-square-foot facility has been designed to support brands in integrating sustainability and circularity models that align with regulatory compliance such as Extended Producer Responsibility policies.
Founded in 2008 by Eleiter and Wes Baker, the steadily expanding Debrand serves apparel brands like Everlane, lululemon, Aritzia, and Canada Goose.
Continuing to advance its platform, the Canadian cleantech recently received more than $300,000 in funding from the Province of British Columbia.
The CleanBC Plastics Action Fund capital is slated support Debrand’s latest research and development initiative focused on diverting plastic-based apparel and textiles from the landfill and re-integrating them into the circular economy.
Debrand’s new initiative will leverage automated sortation machinery and proprietary software to analyze plastic-based apparel and textiles currently in circulation.
By sorting these garments with precision and identifying their material composition, the project aims to better understand the operational and economic requirements needed to prepare these items for appropriate reuse and recycling pathways.
“Plastic-derived textiles contribute to a significant portion of today’s fashion system, making up about 60% of the world’s clothing,” explains company cofounder Amelia Eleiter. “The industry has a responsibility to reduce its impact by extending the life of the materials that have already been extracted.”
Since 2020, the CleanBC Plastics Action Fund has invested $40M into solutions that reduce the use of new plastic and/or expand reuse of existing and recycled plastic.
“This funding allows us to go deeper into understanding apparel’s plastic waste stream here in B.C. and apply advanced sortation technology to better understand what’s possible, so we can design smarter circular systems that valorize these materials, not waste the,” Eleiter said.