Ciclo Achieves ‘Biodegradable’ Synthetic Fiber Milestone

There are a multitude of reasons why fashion hasn’t been able to wean itself off synthetic materials despite the growing backlash over fossil fuels in an age of climate breakdown: They’re stretchy, they’re versatile, they’re unfussy and they perform, no questions asked. Most of all, they’re cheap.

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Textile Exchange’s latest materials market report , which it published last week, throws into relief what the Changing Markets Foundation has dubbed the industry’s “plastic paralysis.” Petrochemical-based fiber production jumped by nearly 12 percent from 67 million metric tons in 2022 to 75 million metric tons last year. Polyester generation alone increased by 13 percent from 63 million metric tons to 71 million metric tons, accounting for 57 percent of the global materials pie.

But synthetic materials are generally bad news from beginning to end. To start with, their creation emits copious carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. When they’re worn or laundered, they slough off microplastics that inundate waterways, food chains and human bodies. They continue to stick around even when their useful lives are over, contaminating landfills that leach toxic chemicals into the groundwater.

Andrea Ferris co-invented the Ciclo technology a dozen years ago when she was working at a uniforms manufacturer that trafficked in its fair share of polyester. While her employer recognized that even recycled polyester was polluting the environment, it also knew that it wasn’t able to realistically make a shift. To supply a “better synthetic” for the company’s own use, Ferris helped develop a proprietary “sustainable textiles ingredient” that could be added to melt-extruded polyester and nylon so they could degrade as a natural fiber would. Even then everyone knew this was something special, she said. Four years later, Ciclo would spin off as a joint venture of Intrinsic Textiles Group and Parkdale Advanced Materials to share its additive with the world. Today, up to 80 brands use Ciclo, now Oeko-Tex Global Passport-certified, in their products, including Aéropostale, Billabong, Champion, Oakley, Target and even McDonald’s.

This fall, Ciclo hit a major milestone, producing 100 million pounds of synthetic fiber that microbes in the soil and water find as appetizing as cotton or wool. Studies based on American Society for Testing and Materials methodology show, in fact, that Ciclo-impregnated products biodegrade at the same rate as wool, Ferris said.

“It’s a big-volume number that shows we’re really growing and scaling, and this is actually being implemented all around the world,” she said of the landmark threshold.

The company doesn’t make the yarn itself but instead partners with 50 or so designated manufacturers around the world that are required to participate in its traceability program so Ciclo can keep tabs on what’s being produced and where it goes. The additive itself is pumped out at contract manufacturers in the United States and Thailand in pellet and liquid forms.

“A lot of people ask…why is Ciclo so successful? Why are they No. 1?” said John Price, president and chief operating fibers at BMT Fibers, a Ciclo partner. “And our answer to that is that they were the only ones that came into the market a few years back and offered a total traceable solution. The Ciclo people knew that if they were going to get major retail brands to say yes, they were going to have to provide a system of documentation and traceability. Without that, nobody would want to do it because they’d be risking their reputation.”

As consumer awareness of microfiber pollution peaks—and regulators start to take a closer look at the issue—Price thinks that all users of polyester products will eventually be using Ciclo because it has emerged as the “most practical, affordable and implementable solution.”

Ciclo didn’t create so-called “biodegradable” polyester to make disposable polyester, Ferris said. To put it another way, the technology shouldn’t be employed as a fig leaf for fashion to keep churning out ever-increasing quantities of synthetics. What it is, she said, is a way to mitigate the presence of “fugitive” synthetic microfiber pollution. And, Ferris noted, it’s only one in a quiver of possible solutions to address a multifaceted issue that has several intervention points: creating fibers that don’t shed as much or at all to begin with, for instance, or installing filters in mills and consumer washing machines. Or perhaps, as some environmental groups are demanding, curtailing or even curbing the use of petrochemical-heavy textiles altogether.

“Textiles are incredibly complex, and there’s no one single answer status,” she said. “And I think Ciclo is a pragmatic solution to deal with the microplastic that’s entering the environment that we can’t control.”

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Ferris thinks that synthetics are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Fast fashion, the growth engine of the industry, wouldn’t exist without polyester’s ultra-low cost. Replacing synthetics with natural fibers without tackling overproduction and overconsumption would also tax ecosystems beyond their breaking points . And eschewing virgin inputs for bottle-to-textile or textile-to-textile recycled alternatives wouldn’t necessarily ameliorate the microplastic problem.

“Synthetics are here for our lifetimes, I believe,” she said. “The most sustainable thing [to do] is to make them really durable, make them functional, but then also allow them to ultimately biodegrade if they wind up polluting the environment, which they are. That’s our perspective on it.”

At the same time, Ciclo’s success cannot be teased apart from the fact that fashion isn’t giving up synthetics. That’s particularly true in the outdoor and sportswear sectors, where performance is critical (or at least highly desirable) and credible replacements for fossil fuel-based materials and finishes either haven’t been invented or are financially out of reach.

For Billabong, its recycled nylon, recycled polyester and graphene wetsuits were a pain point. (It’s been transitioning the synthetic rubber it uses to an all-natural, Forestry Stewardship Council-certified rubber.)

“Our mantra has always been, ‘Make the best wetsuits, be good to the ocean,’ so at Billabong we’re always searching for sustainable options to push design and innovation forward in the surfing market,” said Scott Boot, its global director of wetsuits. “Ocean plastic and microplastic pollution was a concern, not to mention the end-of-life issue of wetsuits and their inability to biodegrade.”

Boot said that Ciclo is an “added safeguard” to ensure that the brand minimizes its products’ impact because of wear and tear during use and when they reach a point where “they can no longer fulfill their purpose.” Working with the innovator has also “opened our eyes” to alternative solutions that can help deal with a garment’s end of life, he said.

Ferris declined to say how much implementing Ciclo technology would cost, since it’s “very dependent” on volume. But, she said, it’s low.

She also said that Ciclo doesn’t prevent textiles from being mechanically or chemically recycled. The company has been holding conversations with textile-to-textile recycling firms on possibly co-developing products. Ciclo may not be a silver bullet solution, Ferris admitted, but it’s important to have solutions that the industry can act upon now instead of waiting for perfection.

Right now, one of Ciclo’s biggest challenges beyond continuing to scale is how to communicate what biodegradability means without falling afoul of growing “greenwashing” scrutiny , particularly to consumers in today’s attention economy.

“I can present to a brand and spend an hour and a half talking about biodegradation, the mechanisms, ASTM and ISO standard specifications and those kinds of things, but I can’t do that with the consumer,” Ferris said. “We’ve gotten around that by just talking about the end benefit of the reduction of microplastic pollution in the environment, which is truthful, can be substantiated…and is also in compliance with any state or federal regulations around how to market biodegradable plastics. But yes, consumers need to be educated on that.”

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