Brightfiber Textiles

The fashion industry is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Every year, 100 billion new pieces of clothing are being manufactured. More than half of these are thrown away within a year after production.

“Circular clothing is a popular phrase, but only one per cent of all clothes is made of recycled materials – and that is mainly industrial waste. Meanwhile, the rising amount of consumer textile waste is the real issue to solve. What’s more, the circumstances under which textile workers live and work are dire, sometimes deadly. Brightfiber Textiles is here to make a change.” – Ellen Mensink, Founder and CEO at Brightfiber Textiles

Brightfiber Textiles’ founder Ellen Mensink started her sustainable textile entrepreneurship by founding Brightloops in 2016, a fully circular clothing brand, with the aim to create a global movement of changemakers in circular fashion. Mensink recently founded Brightfiber Textiles a separate company, working closely together with Brightloops. The aim of Brightfiber Textiles is to have a measurable, positive impact by producing valuable feedstock from local waste and supporting more fashion companies to make circular products. Brightfiber Textiles supplies to Brightloops, but also to partnering brands and textile producers with a focus on sustainability. Around 20 stores in the Netherlands currently sell clothing made from Brightfiber Textiles’ material.

The process of fiberizing textiles to turn them into usable, high-quality yarns starts with the local collection of used clothes, which are then sorted by a sorting machine based on color and composition. A cleaning machine removes zippers, buttons, labels and other odd components. Brightfiber Textiles then further processes the textile into high value fibers and blends the material with additional sustainable fibers and colors. These are processed into a new collection of yarns and fabrics under Brightfiber Textiles’ own brand.