Textile waste is a big problem around the globe. In France, it’s estimated to be around 4 million tons, and that’s just a fraction of what gets tossed globally; it was 17 million tons in the United States three years ago. Very little of that discarded clothing is collected for reuse or recycling, less than a third in France, and half of that (15%) in the U.S.
Clarisse Merlet, a French architecture, came up with the idea for FabBRICK, her award-winning company that makes decorative and insulative bricks out of old clothes. The basic component of the bricks is shredded clothing, which Merlet purchases pre-ground from a supplier in Normandy.
Each brick uses the equivalent of two to three T-shirts’ worth of material and, any kind can be used, including cotton, polyester, elastane, PVC, etc.
The scraps are mixed with an ecological glue that Merlet developed herself, then pressed into a brick mold. This mold uses mechanical compression to form the bricks, so it requires no energy beyond what a human worker needs to press it down.
The wet bricks are removed from the mold and set out to dry for two weeks before using.
At FabBRICK all creations are thought out and handcrafted in workshop in the heart of Paris. Since the creation at the end of 2018, the company had already designed more than 40,000 bricks which represent 12 tons of recycled textiles.
Three machines have been developed to make the project bigger.
The latest version has been duplicated five times, to be able to increase the production capacity. The next step is to industrialize the manufacturing process so that we will be able to recycle even more textile waste.
