The CYCLO® recycled fibres are made without dyeing and without the use of water or chemicals

Many of Prisma's new collections feature the CYCLO® recycled fibre, which has a smaller sustainability footprint than traditional materials and production methods. The CYCLO® fibre is a new, ecological textile material produced using waste from the clothing industry without dyeing, water, or chemicals.

Increasingly more clothing is being recycled, but the textile industry still uses up a lot of our planet's resources. For example, growing new cotton requires a large amount of natural resources, especially water. Growing cotton also requires more and more farmland, and lots of chemicals are used in dyeing and processing.

A whopping 20% of new pure fabrics ends up in clothing factories as offcuts, which in turn still mainly end up in landfills and are incinerated*. CYCLO® provides an opportunity to utilise this textile waste. Also, it moves the clothing and textile industry away from a linear model – where products are bought, worn and then discarded – towards a circular economy model, where the value associated with a material can be transferred from one product to another multiple times. The result is a completely new and efficient approach to recycling.

Source: Simco Spinning & Textile Ltd and www.cyclofibers.com.

The idea behind CYCLO®: valuable dyed cotton does not go to waste

CYCLO® fosters a completely different way of thinking and acting. It reduces the environmental impact of the industry and makes the best possible use of the Earth's limited resources. The goal is to avoid wasting valuable dyed cotton. Therefore, the textile waste generated in the clothing industry is processed into new fibres and yarns, without the use of any water, chemicals or dyes.

The story of CYCLO® began back in 2009, when Simco Spinning & Textile Ltd was founded in Bangladesh, which is the largest clothing manufacturing country in the world, where thousands of tons of textile waste are generated daily. Now, these offcuts – mainly cotton – are turned into recycled fibre. Due to the processing process, recycled fibre may contain a small amount of other fibres.

The process is as follows:

1. Offcuts are collected from local companies, inspected, and sorted by colour.
2. The material is torn into fibres in the course of a mechanical recycling process. This method preserves the original colour of the fibre and does not require re-dyeing.
3. The fibres are mixed with other fibres of the same colour and spun into yarn.
4. The yarn is used to make ecological ready-made clothing, such as shirts, which can be purchased at Prisma.

The end product of the CYCLO® process is basically a completely new coloured yarn, made without dyes, water, or chemicals. Thanks to this, the CYCLO® recycled fibre is a new, environmentally friendly alternative – a textile made from recycled material, the end product of which is a sustainable piece of clothing.

How much does one kilo of CYCLO® recycled fibre save**?

• 6.5 kilos of carbon dioxide (CO2), equivalent to a 50 km car ride. Compared to using traditional new materials, the savings are up to 97 percent.
• Nearly 6,000 litres of water, equivalent to 884 days of drinking water. The savings are about 99.71 percent.
• 6.39 megajoules (MJ) of energy, equivalent to nearly five hours of watching TV. The savings are 84 percent.
• Land use is slightly less than six square meters. It is the same size area as about a hundred A4 sheets of paper spread out on the floor. The savings are 99.71%.

**Source: Simco Spinning & Textile Ltd and www.cyclofibers.com. Sample calculations are based on average figures provided by CYCLO®. The actual savings depend on the material combination of both the fabric and the finished clothing.

S Group's private label brands emphasise responsibility and quality

Prisma has been increasing the proportion of private label brands in its product range. Private labels include House, Actuelle and London Fog, and the newer arrivals Luode12 and WKLY.

The interest of both the industry and customers in responsible fashion keeps growing. Responsible work has been developed at S Group for quite a while. This means paying greater attention to supply chain transparency, while at the same time seeking new solutions regarding circular economy opportunities, the environmental friendliness of production and raw materials, and the rights of people and workers.

For example, for the new WKLY. collection, responsibility regarding raw materials has been taken by preferring cotton sourced through the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), as well as recycled polyester, and the CYCLO® fibre made from clothing industry offcuts.

The goal is to be a responsible clothing retailer, offer customers responsible clothing brands, and operate so that by the end of 2025, the cotton in all of our private label brands and imported products is produced responsibly, i.e. it is either organic, recycled, or sourced through Fair Trade or the Better Cotton Initiative.