biosphere circulation project
designed by2biosphere circulation projectIntroduction

Spiber Inc.

Spiber is more than just a material company…
We are Committed to tackling pressing social needs
We Craft and provide innovative solutions
We Contribute to sustainable human well-being

biosphere circulation project3

biosphere circulation project

Fashion & textile waste stats

Under 1%

We must transition from a linear"take-make-use-dispose"model to a sustainable and circular“take-make-use-reuse” model73%

Introductionof used textiles are recycled
for new textile applications
today 1of garments acrossthe globe end up
in landfill 1$100 billion
usd worth of materials
are lost each year atcurrent rate 1
1. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future”, (2017, http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications).

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biosphere circulation project

Figure 1. Percentage of discarded clothing by material composition
Survey period: Dec 7, 2022 - Jan 13,2023 (20 days)
Surveyed qty: 3,479kg
Source of samples: Garments
collected by municipalities inKanagawa, Tokyo & Shizuoka, JapanThe biosphere circulation project

Fashion & textile waste compositions
Cotton12%
Blends of 4+ materials
25%

Clothing waste is composed ofmany types of materials andblended materials—
All fractions of the pie chart are
resources that need to be
circulated at end-of-use—
Products should be designed
using combinations of materials
that have solutions for circularity

Polyester10%

Cotton/Polyester
8%
Blends of 3 materials
19%
Cotton/Elastane(PU) 4%

Polyester/Elastane(PU) 3%
Wool 2%
Acrylic 2%

Other materials

Polyester/Rayon 1%

Other materials (single material & blends)
Rayon

Cotton/Nylon

Cotton/Acetate

Cotton/Rayon

Paper

Lyocell/Wool

Viscose/Wool

Polyester/Tencel

Rayon

Acrylic/Rayon

Acetate/Polyester

MMCF (Plant-basedrecycled fiber)

Nylon/Polyurethane Wool/Linen
Synthetic Leather/
Polyester

Wool/Rayon

Polyacetate/
Cotton/Acrylic

Cotton/Silk

Cupra

Rayon/Acetate

Acrylic/Linen

Cashmere

Silk

Wool/Cupro

Cotton/Cashmere

Cotton/Tencel

Cupra/Polyester

Rayon/Nylon

Polyester/Acrylic

NylonSilk/Cotton

Wool/Polyurethane

Cotton/Wool

Hemp

Lyocell

Rayon/Polyurethane Polyester/Nylon

Nylon/Wool

Silk/Polyester

Pashmina

Cotton/Hemp

Hemp/Rayon

Lyocell/Cotton

TencelPolyester/Linen

Nylon/Acrylic

Wool/CashmereCotton/LinenHemp/Cupro

Lyocell/Nylon

Tencel/Nylon

Polyester/Lexe

Nylon/Polyester

Wool/Silk

Figure 1. This pie chart is adapted based on the “Sustainable Fashion” report produced by the Japanese government. (Original data retrieved from thewebsite of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.Data is based on a study by the Ministry of Environment with support from Nakano Corp.)
https://www.meti.go.jp/shingikai/mono_info_service/resource_recycling/pdf/002_02_00.pdf

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The biosphere circulation project

Spiber’s activities

Clothing waste is composed ofmany types of materials andblended materials—
All fractions of the pie chart areresources that need to be
circulated at end-of-use—
Products should be designed
using combinations of materials
that have solutions for circularity

Spiber’s technology can utilize metabolic
recycling, where biological components of “wastes”(e.g. agricultural residues, natural fibers such as
cotton contained in discarded textile products,etc.) can be broken down into “nutrients” (sugars,amino acids, etc.) for fermentation to produce newmaterials including Brewed Protein™ fibers.
We envision metabolic recycling to play a key rolein a circular future where all mainstream products,
including those combining bio-based andsynthetic materials, are designed to be fully
recycled at end-of-use.

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biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

The project vision

All fractions of the pie chart are resourcesthat need to be circulated at end-of-use

Through partnerships withchemical recycling technologies,
we aim to enable a network ofcircularity solutions for the full
utilization of both bio-based andchemical-based components ofblended textile waste streams
that are composed of various
combinations of materials.

Metabolicrecycling

Chemicalrecycling——

Cellulose (cotton, etc.),
Protein (wool, silk, etc.), etc.

Polyester, Nylon,Elastane, etc.

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biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

Spiber’s activities to enable product design

Clothing waste is composed ofmany types of materials andblended materials—
All fractions of the pie chart areresources that need to be
circulated at end-of-use—
Products should be designed
using combinations of materials
that have solutions for circularity

The biosphere circulation project aims todetermine how to design products for theecosystem of circularity solutions

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The biosphere circulation project

Product design principles: overview

Designing products for biosphere circulation

Principles

123

Design products usingmaterials that have circularity
solutions, and, avoid
combinations of materials
that do not

Ensure textile chemicals andcolorants will notcontaminate end-of-use
processing

Product composition data
must be made available toenable circulation

Each combination of materials needs
to have an efficient, scalable & viable
end-of-use solution for circularity

The effect of textile chemicals andcolorants must be taken into accountin the product design phase toensure that they will not be
contaminants to circularity solutions

Data on all items used to makeproducts must be available for
efficientsorting and directing toright end-of-use circularity solution

9biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

Product design principles

1. Design products using materials that havecircularity solutions, and, avoid combinations ofmaterials that do not
biosphere
circulation
project

1

Is doing the research anddevelopment to provide
solutions for as many types oftextile waste as possible

2

Will make this information
available to designers toenable product design forcircularity

3

Will find a way to allow
consumers to identify
products made in accordancewith these principles

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biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

Product design principles

2. Ensure textile chemicals and colorants
will not contaminate end-of-use processing
biosphere
circulation
project

1

2

Will test materials combinedwith key textile chemicals tounderstand what can be usedas nutrients for fermentation

Will rate materials
combined with textile
chemicals for their ability to
be used as nutrients, and will
make this information
available to the industry as aresource for product design

11biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

Product design principles

Spiber has begun testing avariety of textile dyes toevaluate their impact on theability of bio-based materials
to be converted intonutrients
Sample fabrics before pretreatment

Early findings indicate thatsome dyes can cause adecrease in the ability ofmaterials to be converted
into nutrients
Samples after treatment to extract nutrients

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biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

Product design principles

Figure 2.

This database is a toolSpiber plans topublish on the web
It will disclose
evaluation results ofnutrient conversion
efficiencies forvarious combinationsof materials andchemicals

biosphere circulation compatibility database

Base material

Chemical 1

Chemical 2

Chemical 3

Nutrient conversion rate

Cotton fiberBlack reactive dye[Type XXX]

Chemical softener[Type XXX]

Optical brightener[Type XXX]

Excellent

Silk fiberBlue acid dye[Type XXX]

Chemical softener[Type XXX]

Optical brightener[Type XXX]GoodLinen fiber

Red reactive dye[Type XXX]

Chemical softener[Type XXX]

Optical brightener[Type XXX]

Bad

Wool fiber

Yellow reactive dye[Type XXX]

Chemical softener[Type XXX]

Optical brightener[Type XXX]

Fair*This image is for illustration purposes only, the biosphere circulation compatibility database is currently under development*

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The biosphere circulation project

Product design principles: overview

3. Product composition data must be madeavailable to enable circulation
biospherecirculation
project

12

Created a simple webpage
sharing detailed composition
information for a demo
product developed by projectmember Goldwin

Will find a simple way forbrands to share productcomposition information, toallow consumers to verify theproduct, and to enableproduct sorting and end-ofuse circularity

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biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

Product design principles

Images: Basque shirt, shirt sleeve with QR label

The project’s demo
product, the Basqueshirt, produced byGoldwin, was designed
to be able to beconverted into nutrientsfor fermentation
Full productcomposition
information wasuploaded to a simple
webpage
Read press release

Figure 3. Product webpage

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biosphere circulation project

The biosphere circulation project

Final statement

The “biosphere circulation project” is ourapproach to creating a new path for a morecircular future
We believe in joining forces. By working
together, we can tackle the challenges weface and realize this vision©2024 Spiber Inc.