ADVERTORIAL FOR MILLIKENThis content was created for Milliken. It does not necessarily reflect the views of National Geographic or its editorial staff.But according to Polartec President Steve Layton,
these days recycled content is table stakes.
The next level of sustainable manufacturing
is circularity—polyester products made from
recycled content that can themselves be recycled.
“That’s going to be the key moving forward,” says
Layton. “To be able to take a Polartec sweatshirt at
the end of its life and put it in the recycling bin, the
same as a plastic bottle—that’s the ultimate goal.”Now that Milliken has acquired Polartec, that level of
innovation is even more promising. Layton, a longtime
Milliken leader tapped to head the Polartec business in
June, says the acquisition paves the way for scientific
advancement in recycled performance textiles.“I get excited when I think about how many material
scientists and engineers we have in research and
development within Milliken,” he says. “Our plastics
team has already made some important strides in
[recycling] polypropylene. Hopefully we can apply
it to polyesters and go from there.”He reveals that dedicated teams of material scientists
and engineers at Milliken are working on different
areas of sustainability for the Polartec brand. They’re
developing fabric with recycled content, researching
biodegradable fabrics, and looking into combining
synthetic fibers and hemp. “There’s a lot of great
energy behind it,” says Layton.
A quarter century after the invention of recycled
fleece, Polartec is well-positioned to keep leading on
sustainable fabrics. “We can’t solve the intractable
problems created over the last hundred years of
industrial apparel-making, but we can certainly
change how it impacts the planet going forward,”
says Karstad. “If any industry can do it, it’s the
outdoor industry, because it’s dependent on having
an outdoors to explore.” After a beat, he says: “If we
lose our snowcapped mountains, how will we shred?”T
HREE DAYS AFTER THE MILL BURNED DOWN,
Aaron Feuerstein, then 70 and white-haired, stood
before his workers. It was just before Christmas, 1995,
and Malden Mills employees were braced for the
worst. With the insurance settlement, Feuerstein
could presumably have closed the business and retired
quite comfortably. But he announced that he would
rebuild—and keep every worker on the payroll. It was
reported that everyone wept, including the news crews.Feuerstein had good reason to be confident, even
standing in the ashes of his mill. In 1981, his team of
engineers had developed a dense polyester fabric that
stayed warm when wet and dried quickly. It was the
first synthetic alternative to wool insulation. They
called it PolarFleece®. Years later, Time magazine would
name fleece one of the 100 best inventions of the
20th century.The brand that invented synthetic fleece is now called
Polartec, and it has expanded the limits of outdoor
exploration. “What people have accomplished wouldn’t
have been possible if we’d stopped innovating at
wool,” says David Karstad, creative director and vice
president of marketing at Polartec, which has recently
been acquired by Milliken & Company.Polartec didn’t stop innovating at fleece, either.
In the mid-90s, the company turned its attention
to environmental sustainability, and pioneered the
process to knit recycled polyester yarn made from
plastic water bottles into performance fabrics.
In 1993, the brand collaborated with Patagonia to
design and manufacture the first-ever recycled
polyester fleece.Since then, Polartec has diverted about 1.5 billion
plastic bottles from landfills and manufactured
more than 200 styles with a minimum of 50 percent
recycled content. The goal is to reach 100 percent
recycled content across all products.A QUARTER CENTURY AFTER INVENTING
RECYCLED FLEECE, POLARTEC CONTINUES
TO LEAD THE OUTDOOR INDUSTRY
WITH SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION AND
CUTTING-EDGE MATERIAL SCIENCE.
how will we shred?
If we lose our
snowcapped
mountains,