A journey to microplastic-free athletic apparel Erik de Groot 25-09-2019

Kahoot.it Time for a little quiz

We make THE alternative for plastic athletic apparel: athletic apparel based on natural materials like hemp and eucalyptus

Studied at the hague university: urban planning Studied at the hague university: urban planning. Nothing to do with fashion, but I was always working as an entrepreneur. Energy transition

Studies entrepreneurship minor at Berkeley.

A must watch docu. Made me start Iron Roots source: Amazon

Working out in polyester/nylon: Makes you smell bad Static energy on your skin makes it uncomfortable

We didn’t find a good alternative, so we started it ourselves: Stefan, Ashkan & Erik

Team Define the essential skills needed for your business Either learn them yourself, or find someone who has that skillset and take them in your team What is needed for a good team in any organisation?

This is the main problem: much more polyester gets used than other fabrics.

polyester nylon elastane acrylic lycra spandex Some of the names which are fossil fuel (plastic) based

When you wash your plastic clothing, tiny pieces get released due to friction.

So why is there so much polyester in clothing? it’s cheap. Easy to manipulate with chemicals: windproof + waterproof

Conferences: We can make everything just like cotton, but why don’t they just use cotton??

The limiter: Elastane Elastane is needed to make things stretchy, so a lot of athletic apparel can’t be made without plastic

One of those skills we didn’t have was cutting and sewing One of those skills we didn’t have was cutting and sewing. So we had to learn that ourselves. Here’s a good pic of how that went

Problem in creating clothing. We wanted to do it locally Problem in creating clothing. We wanted to do it locally. So there’s only one country you can turn to in Europe: Romania. Turned out that production was really difficult there. Source: amazonaws

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution Words to live by

Challenges in scaling: if you’re small it’s very difficult to change things in production

Consumer product: 1. Don’t want to spend too much 2. Clothing industry is very abstract 3. Too much to tell as a brand 4. It has to look good

Convince them of quality/functionality Consumer product: 1. Don’t want to spend too much Convince them of quality/functionality

Tell them stories about the industry Consumer product: 2. Clothing industry is very abstract Tell them stories about the industry

“Microplastic-free athletic apparel” Consumer product: 3. Too much to tell as a brand “Microplastic-free athletic apparel”

Design x Functionality x Sustainability Consumer product: 4. It has to look good Design x Functionality x Sustainability This is what sets apart good products from great products. Is also the reason why The Prius didn’t make a big impact, and the Tesla did

What can we do? What can we do about microplastic pollution?

Organic cotton: solves a lot of the issues regular cotton has and is widely available. Things to be concerned about: monoculture

Hemp: No pesticides or insecticides Can grow quickly and requires 1/3 of the land and water compared to cotton Flax (linen) is closely related, but hemp is a bit less sturdy and has more applications

Eucalyptus: Made with NMNO in a closed loop system Very high quality material Worries: monoculture and wildfires. Can be solved with biodiversity guidelines in the growing process.

Bamboo: Great as a resource, sucks as clothing Needs CS2 in the production proces = known hazardous chemical Greenwashing at the current state

Animal fabrics: - Great performance but really big scaling issues (cashmere gaot example)

Washing bag helps to reduce microplastics released from your clothing

Challenges Recycling plastics: problem occurs because we can’t make microplastic free recycled plastic Greenwashing Issues with production: manufacturers are creating bottles for direct pre-consumer recycling

Important to note that plastics are needed and have brought us tremendous adventages Hard plastics will stay around, soft plastics (clothing) have to leave

We should recycle plastic into things that are hard and don’t degrade easily. source: focusur.nu

Bioplastics Good alternative for the future: bioplastics.

Our current state

Our now We have our own little webshop

Our now 2 physical stores that sell our products

Our future

Be THE alternative to plastic sportswear Set an example for the industry Have 100% overview of our supply chain Develop our own fabrics Be 100% circular in our production Our dreams

Innovation in recycling methods Innovation in production methods Opportunities Innovation in recycling methods Innovation in production methods Convince government of value of recycling Build new business models that fit in circularity

Q&A

A journey to microplastic-free athletic apparel Erik@ironroots.nl