Noosa™ Fiber

Noosa™ Fiber is a young, Belgian start-up created in 2019 and based in Brussels. It’s a small company of 8, with an emphasis on sustainable R&D and the zest of change-makers.

“At Noosa™, we focus on creating sustainable and innovative textile fibers from new, and slightly unlikely, materials and sources,” Luna begins. “Our process starts from any sugar that we transform into lactic acid. Then we spin a fiber and a yarn from it, which we sell to brands or manufacturers. They transform our Noosa™ Fiber into an end product. We guarantee that, at the end of life, we can take back the product and recycle 100% of it into a virgin quality fiber, endlessly, without any deterioration or loss of properties”.

With a background in business engineering, Luna has always been interested in innovation. “After graduating, I dabbed in the textile industry and quickly realised that it lacks a focus on chemistry, which is pivotal in understanding and researching new, innovative, and sustainable materials. What also struck me is that there are very few recycling solutions. Unfortunately, we still heavily rely on petrol and fossil-based textiles. I decided I wanted to bring a circular business model to the industry,” Luna says. 

Luna: “Through conversations about my observations, I met my associates who have a background in chemistry. We applied our findings and knowledge to the textile industry, that’s how Noosa™ Fiber was born”. 

Luna: “We’ve found a solution for our industry’s immense textile waste problem. Today (2024), textile waste adds up to 92 million tons per year, which is one of the aspects that makes the industry so incredibly polluting. At the moment, there are few solutions to recycle textile waste, most of it still ends up in landfills or gets burned at the end of its life cycle”. 

“There’s an urgency to find bio-sourced materials to replace petrochemicals and fossil-based materials,” Luna continues. “In the fashion industry right now, it's easier to find an alternative to a cotton T-shirt than to yoga leggings. To meet the need for elasticity and high performance in these products, we still turn to synthetic materials despite knowing their disadvantages. We’re proud to say that Noosa™ Fiber is the most promising alternative to everything petrol-sourced, whether it's polyester or polyamide. On top of that, it’s circular and prevents waste”. 

Luna: “Compared to traditional materials, we have one of the lowest environmental impacts, 50% lower than conventional cotton, for example. Thanks to this, we're part of the ‘Solar Impulse 1,000 solutions’, the 1,000 solutions shortlisted to accelerate the ecological transition”.

“An added quality to Noosa™ Fiber is that it’s man-made, allowing us to shape it in many different ways. Lastly, as part of our recycling process, all the solvents and chemicals we use are FDA approved, meaning you could even drink them without any harm, though it wouldn’t taste very good,” Luna laughs.

“In Europe, there’s a growing emphasis on legislation that pushes brands to only use recycled materials or recyclables. We’re forced to find sustainable solutions; we won’t be able to destroy clothes any longer. It seems to us that the solution is to source a textile fiber that is bio-renewable and 100% recyclable,” Luna says.

“Noosa™ Fiber uses a unique patented chemical recycling process. We’re able to recycle 100% of our textile fiber; no other company manages to do this today. The three products we currently sell are staple fiber, spun yarn, and filament yarn, with a different range in terms of fineness”.

“It’s very important to us that we can contribute to fabrics and products with highly technical applications, intrinsic properties like UV stability and low flammability,” Luna says. “Noosa™ Fiber ensures these properties in the final product”. 

“Our fiber has increased breathability, ensuring low odor retention. It’s bacteriostatic and hypoallergenic, providing a feeling of comfort when it's close to the skin. These are some of the specificities we see highlighted in the fashion industry today, especially in activewear. People are dying to find sustainable alternatives to petrochemical materials”. 

Luna adds: “Noosa™ Fiber is also highly suitable for underwear, loungewear, and all materials that come in close contact with the skin, like bedding and home textiles. Another big industry for us could be workwear, which allows easy implementation of closed loops”.

“We don’t only think of industrial purposes, but also keep the user life cycle in mind,” Luna continues. “For this, we have developed NOOCYCLE™ . NOOCYCLE™ is a unique patented chemical recycling process that takes place in our company in Brussels. We’re able to separate our Noosa™ Fiber from any type of product component. Any additive, dye, fiber blends, etc., we can isolate and get back our material”. 

“Unfortunately, when it comes to consumer user life, we cannot give as many guarantees. We can offer instructions regarding sustainable treatment, but, at the end of the day, we only sell the fiber and don't control the user cycle”. 

Luna: “The textile industry is international. We offer a concrete and tangible solution that is industrially available and economically viable. You can create amazing innovations that will never go further than a garage project, but we’re realistic and dedicated to impact. We follow the industry’s standards and needs; we challenge the entire industry”.

“Our goal has always been to find solutions to big problems. In doing so, you need to be able to compete with existing solutions. Everyone starts small, but whatever you do needs to be able to scale up. In terms of our production capacity today, we're nowhere close to the production of polyester fibers, for example, but it’s our goal to one day be”.

“Of course, there’s ambition and there’s reality. No one's perfect and there are always trade-offs. The bigger you get, the more trade-offs you’ll have, I guess, but we’re committed to continually improving,” Luna adds. 

Luna: “We have a lot of valuable partners in China. When it comes to advanced materials and textile chemistry, most research and knowledge isn’t in Europe. At Noosa™ Fiber, we’re in the process of building a 100% in-house production and bringing everything to Belgium. That’s our ambition, to be able to close the loop at the European level, but right now, it’s not possible yet”.  

“It is about taking the best of different worlds,” Luna continues. “Knowing that we cannot move forward with a merely Eurocentric view, but that we can all learn from one another. When it comes to new and bio-based materials, for example, Europeans, are late compared to some other parts of the world. This also explains why China has more competencies in this area; they’ve been researching new materials for over 10 years. In Europe, we’re only at the start of this because of recent changes in European legislation”. 

“In Europe we have little left when it comes to textile knowledge, despite our rich heritage” Luna says. “When we try to introduce a new fiber to the market, it takes time because 80% of the work is education – educating the investors, brands, and customers, but mainly the manufacturing line. There aren’t many factories left in Europe, and we need to go there personally to train them, explain how to dye our product, how to knit it, etc.”.

“Textile science studies don't exist in Belgium anymore. In Belgium, we’re very good when it comes to design, but textile is a complex science, and we hardly have any of it left in our country,” Luna says. “To be able to find the right profiles for our company, we’re forced to look abroad. I believe that we need to re-skill our European population and revalue our textile industry. We need to attract teenagers who are still in the process of making decisions for their future lives and careers. It’s necessary to relaunch textile science and chemistry studies”.

Luna: “At Noosa™ Fiber we remain modest. We’re a start-up, we need help, and we need partnerships. Innovation, change, and meaningful impact cannot occur if we don’t work together”. 

Thank you, Luna Aslan, for sharing your insights and innovative power with us.