About This Project

This project proposes a novel approach to engineer ancestral enzymes in order to tackle the global problem of textile waste at an immediate and local level.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The textile industry is a major contributor to climate change, with an estimated 65 - 92 million tons of textile waste generated annually (1). In the US alone, 65% of textile waste ends up in US-based landfills and of the 15% that is recycled within the US, up to half of this is simply shipped to other countries (2). This shifts the economic, social, and climate burden to developing nations and causes textile waste to be diverted from at-capacity landfills into water streams, ultimately ending up in oceans (3). Strikingly, an estimated 35% of global microplastics entering the ocean are from synthetic textiles (4).

What is the significance of this project?

In modern clothing, synthetic plastic materials are interwoven with plant-based fibres, meaning that deploying enzymes capable of degrading a single type of material will likely not be sufficient to significantly reduce textile waste (5). In addition, solutions must be more disruptive than simply targeting the final landfills in textile waste supply chains (6, 7). Large-scale solutions ignore dispersed textile waste in communities, small locations where fabric items are already mixed and non-separable, and points of collection such as charity clothes donations bins that are overwhelmed with materials non-suitable for recycling and that incur a carbon-emission cost when shipping to landfill (8).

What are the goals of the project?

Outcomes from this project are engineered enzymes more capable of degrading individual components of textile waste. Importantly, this project prioritises enzymes capable of working in combination with another so they can be employed directly in areas where textile items are already mixed and contain a diverse set of interwoven components. Finally, these solutions are designed to be employed at small scale, allowing disruption to the overall textile waste chain, rather than requiring upscaling of laboratory techniques. This helps to navigate the ‘valley of death’ in moving from early proof of concept more rapidly (technology readiness level 4 through to level 7) and allows more immediate action on climate change that would directly affect the environment and humans living within it.