The Zero waste project
The holistic approach we have when it comes to product design, made us question how the industry works with material efficiency. We noticed early in our own development process that there are plenty of materials wasted in a conventional manufacturing process, and as much as 35% of produced fabrics end upp burned or in landfill. We had an idea on how to make it more efficient, and since we manufacture our products ourselves we have the ability to make a change.
There and then, the Zero Waste project was born. An ambitious goal to eliminate every gram of fabric waste in our production.
Why is fabric waste still a problem?
1. There is no interest from the supply chain to change.
The fact that the end-customer still pays the price, the material waste issue is ignored by the suppliers (who can sell more fabric), the manufacturer (because this is charged as "production costs"), and the customer who is often unaware about the information.
2. Today's production methods only mimics the production methods of the previous decade.
Since production of textiles is a highly manual procedure, it is often placed in low-wage countries where the technologies are often left behind. This leads to the unfortunate situation where the semi-automatic production of today is only used to imitate the fully manual cutting procedures used decades ago.
Reinventing the cutting process.
Conventional
cutting pattern
The products are manually placed, aligned with the fibre direction that is most efficient in terms of how many pieces that fits into the fabric roll width. In this case, thats two. The spacing needed between each panel is always using "worst case scenario" for the cutting machine.
Now the output from this cutting is how many patterns fitted on your cutting table, multiplied with how many layers of fabric you stack on top of each other.
Ryvelle®
cutting pattern
The pattern is AI generated, based on each unique production batch, the product sizes and the quantity of each. It automatically counts for cutting margin based on the cutter movement, the fibre alignment that is needed, and how many layers of fabric that should be cut simultaneously to optimize the output to match the production planning.
See the proper outlines next to all the panels?
Yup, that's your scrunchie.
The Scrunchie.
We firmly believe in challenging conventional methods, but we also love making use of what the industry consider useless.
When we started the Zero Waste project, we wanted to use the leftover materials from the cutting process for something more. With that said, it was highly important we actually made something that actually serves a purpose, and not just for the sake of using waste materials.
Why scrunchies?
Hair bands and tassels are one of the most bought and replaced products in the whole fashion industry, simply because they won’t last or maintain quality over time. It’s also one of the most logistic-unfriendly pieces of garment money can buy.
It also happens to be a very simple geometry needed to make it. We make this product only from the leftover materials of your product, and nothing else. That is the reason why you can’t buy a scrunchie. It comes for free with your products, because that is where it originated from. We have no interest in selling tassels. We strive to eliminate material waste.
Because the scrunchie is originated and paired with your product, it has the same material and color. This makes it not only very unique and durable, but also very stylish. It goes just as well as an accessory on your wrist as holding up your hair. This falls right into our concept of designing versatile, multi-functional products with elegance in mind.
Re-use
Finally, the last few percentages of waste material is recycled to fibre state again, ready for the next batch of fabrics to be knitted.
The Reelay fabric is made from 100% recycled polyesters, and with the recycling in-house, we can guarantee the quality and the origin of the fibres.
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