TEXTILE INSIGHT MAGAZINE July/August 2021 – Saya is doing more to promote circularity while doing less harm to the environment. By expanding sources of recycled fiber and innovating responsible manufacturing processes Saya leads the way to a more sustainable future.

Saya is in the business of renewal. What that means is that Saya is always actively seeking new sources, and new processes, to advance sustainable solutions, driven by the fact that the supply of plastic to recycle is not endless.

The company’s latest innovation takes direct aim at solving one of the biggest impacts of the textile industry: material waste. Most people don’t realize this but every year between 20 and 40 percent of new yardage becomes wasted fabric in the form of cutting room scraps and overstock. Although the problem of pre-consumer waste isn’t obvious to the general public, it is clearly a challenge facing the textile community and industry at large.

The rise of fast fashion and just-in time delivery, along with the escalating trend of e-commerce has put greater demand on global manufacturers to prepare greige and fabrics earlier and earlier in the production cycle. But when markets change abruptly, as experienced in extreme measure during the pandemic, inventories swell with what becomes deadstock.

Saya has a cutting edge renewal solution ready to address this global problem. It’s called the Rscuw Project, a commercialized recycling program that successfully turns the inconvenient reality of textile garment waste into an opportunity for progress. The company’s efficient, centralized system takes rolls of fabric and offcuts that are not used to make a garment and transforms them into durable and functional polyester fibers.

Saya is not alone in focusing on the issue of pre-consumer textile waste. Indeed it will take a collective effort by industry members to succeed in the goal of creating a modern closed loop textile supply chain. However, Saya’s forward thinking approach to renewal technology sparked the company to act quickly with investment and scalability placing Saya in a leadership position.

“Continuous innovation in renewal technologies is important to increase the yield and of the recycled goods collected,” explains Saya’s Director of R&D Jack Chen. “This is the only way we can someday achieve circularity.”

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