- Carbon emissions, CO2.
You've heard of it, you know it warms the planet,
but did you know that this dress is literally
made from carbon emissions?
Yup, that's exactly what one biotech startup is doing.
They're capturing carbon emissions
that would normally be released
into the atmosphere, warming the planet,
and instead converting it into ethanol,
which is then processed into one of the
components used to make polyester,
and voila, a dress is created.
And don't think these are some soot covered
dresses better suited for a chimney sweep.
Nope, these dresses are actually quite fashionable.
You might be saying, wait, how can these
be made of carbon emissions? How is that
even possible? And perhaps you're asking,
how can I get my hands on one?
Well, stick around, because that's what
we're checking out in this week's episode.
How are carbon emissions being captured?
Why make clothing out of them?
And how does this process help in fighting
the climate crisis? Most importantly,
we'll talk to that one group, that's upcycling
all of this into this.
(upbeat music)
This is Jennifer Holmgren, she's the CEO
of LanzaTech, that's the biotech startup
we mentioned earlier.
And Jennifer is on a mission to reduce our global
carbon emissions while making really
cool products that we use every day,
including these dresses, here's Jennifer.
- Our goal is to make sure that we put carbon
in a circular economy and we reuse it
over and over again, rather than dumping it
into the air or into our oceans.
- And after more than 15 years of
technology development and scaling up, Jennifer
and LanzaTech believe, they've got the solutions
needed to lead the way into a new circular carbon economy.
Using those solutions and some creative
collaboration with clothing companies,
they created a collection for one of retail's
largest brands that incorporates fabrics
made with carbon emissions.
- We're making products that are identical
and complete replacements, and that's actually
one of the cool things, right?
Because if you can do that, then people
don't have to change the entire rest of your
manufacturing cycle to be able to use it.
- But how do carbon emissions become clothing?
Good question, let's take a look.
The journey starts at a steel mill where
instead of coming out of the chimney
or smoke stack as greenhouse gases,
the carbon emissions are captured.
Once that CO2 is captured, it is pumped
into a bioreactor which has bacteria
swimming all through it.
And right when the carbon makes its way
into the bioreactor, the bacteria eats it up,
instantly converting it into ethanol.
Then the ethanol is recovered, cleaned
and shipped to India Glycols Limited,
which is a separate company in, you guessed it, India.
There, it's converted into monoethylene glycol.
- That's the building block of polyester.
- Exactly, thanks Jennifer.
So then that monoethylene glycol building block
is processed into a low carbon polyester yarn
by a third company, Far Eastern New century in Taiwan.
Then you've got your polyester fibers
and the rest is really no different
than making clothes, not from carbon emissions.
Apparel companies and their supply chains,
use that polyester yarn to make
the final pieces of clothing.
Phew, that's a mouthful, still with me?
Think of it like a brewery where yeast
turns sugar into alcohol in steel tanks.
LanzaTech uses bacteria to ferment pollution
into ethanol, the entire process from start to finish
takes about four months to complete.
Now, before we go on, let's pause
for a quick lesson on today's polyester.
You probably already know that polyester
is basically a plastic material, and you might
already know that plastic comes from petroleum.
It's basically made from oil.
So this process from LanzaTech not only captures
and makes use of emissions that would normally
pollute the planet, it also lowers
the need to extract more fossil fuels
from the ground to create new polyester.
Okay, back to the show, so now you've got your dress.
It's made out of captured carbon emissions.
It's looking good, but can those emissions
ever escape the dress and find their way
into our atmosphere? Jennifer says, not likely.
- So we've prevented it from entering
the atmosphere because now it's locked away
in that dress, so unless you burn the dress,
so you decomposed the dress in some way,
which you're not gonna do, it's locked in.
- How neat is that? LanzaTech promotes
a carbon smart circular economy where carbon
is locked into the material cycle and consumers
can choose where their carbon comes from.
- We have the ability to give consumer the choice.
Does somebody want to wear a recycled
carbon dress, or do they wanna wear
a dress that was made from petroleum?
And that's what we're trying to create,
a world where people have a choice
of where their carbon comes from.
- Why are LanzaTech and clothing brands
doing all this? Well, as you might've seen
in recent years, the climate crisis is having
major impacts on our planet from extreme
weather events, wildfires, severe droughts,
and heat waves, it's affecting everything
from crop production, disruption of habitats,
rising sea levels, the list goes on.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council
or NRDC, the average global temperature
in the past 50 years has increased
at the fastest rate in recorded history.
All of which is the direct result of us humans
emitting a lot of greenhouse gases,
mostly carbon, into our atmosphere and causing
the global temperature to rise.
According to a 2021 report from the UN,
global emissions are expected to rise 16%
by 2030 compared to 2010 levels.
That puts the world off track for the 45%
cut in emissions, the climate scientists say
is needed to meet the Paris Agreements goal
of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius
above pre-industrial levels.
That means if we don't take immediate action,
the consequences will be major, with heat
trapping carbon in the atmosphere causing more
devastating effects, there'll be no turning back.
Yikes, but not only that, a report
from the New England Journal of Medicine
also suggests that the rising global temperatures
will lead to many more deaths and could force
100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030.
So what can be done? Well to start,
LanzaTech has a goal of the next couple of years
to prevent a million tons of CO2
from being emitted, and instead,
turning it into products, that's like taking over
197,000 passenger vehicles off the road for one year.
So far, the company has produced
over 24 million gallons of low carbon intensity
ethanol and has prevented 120,000 tons of CO2
from being emitted into the atmosphere.
They hope that someday, everything that is used
and bought, will come from re-recycled carbon,
not fresh fossil carbon.
- I would like people to understand
is that all these things are possible.
That, that we need to just be working
on technology, scaling technology,
and that we need partners like Zara
to get support from consumers,
so that they continue to try to lead a change
- The company hopes to create future refineries
and convert the ethanol in one location,
instead of shipping it out across the world,
Further cutting down on their own emissions.
They also aren't stopping at clothing
and plan to produce all sorts of products,
using their tech, everything from bottles,
aviation fuel, shoes and rubber tires.
So that's about it, carbon emissions are captured
and converted into ethanol through fermentation,
which is then converted into low carbon
Monoethylene glycol, and turned into a low
carbon yarn, which is then used to make fabric.
All of this helps in limiting the release
of carbon into our atmosphere.
Cutting back is super important
to offsetting global warming.
So what are your thoughts on this emerging tech?
Would you wear clothing made out of CO2?
How else are you helping stop the climate crisis?
Let us know in the comments below.
Hey, me again, thanks for watching.
We hope you enjoyed hearing about this innovation
in the manufacturing industry.
Hopefully a lot more brands will take on this
and similar initiatives in their future collections.
But we're NowThis Earth, and we can't do
an episode about polyester without
mentioning microplastic, polyester and other
synthetic materials, shed microfibers,
which, in these materials, is just another word
for microplastics, a whole another issue
we need to be aware of.
There's no silver bullet when it comes to this stuff.
And this example just goes to show
we need even more companies coming forward
with creative solutions to tackle
the climate crisis, so what do you think?