Upcycling Cotton Waste Into Insulation Materials

This is innovation #3 in our saga on innovative building materials.

Dec 7, 2023

In the previous post, we focused on upcycling plastic into bricks and other building elements. As we mentioned, startups are flourishing and offering multiple hopeful innovations. Today, we look at an equally exciting innovation with cotton at its heart.

Cotton is a popular material in the textile industry and the most widely used natural fiber for manufacturing the fabrics of our clothes. It accounts for 33% of all fibers used in textiles and is one of the world's leading commercial agricultural commodities (TRVST, 2021). On a global level, cotton farming accounts for 220 million tons of CO2 per year (Environmental Justice Foundation, 2020), which causes a disastrous impact on the climate. While many cotton recycling initiatives have emerged, more work is still needed to reduce the climate impacts of cotton already in circulation.

In response to this urgency, French company le relais has developed Métisse®, a bio-based insulation material made from cotton collected at its own collection points that is not reusable in its current state and would otherwise be destined for incineration.

As heating prices are expected to soar in Europe due to the war in Ukraine, insulation is a key element in limiting energy costs. This innovation would somewhat contribute to limit the energy consumption of households due to its nature. Additionally, like the innovations presented in our previous posts, Métisse® could potentially reduce CO2e emissions by curbing the incineration and production of other virgin insulation materials. However, the comparison of the environmental impact of this insulation material with a conventional material remains to be studied, and this can only be done with appropriate calculation tools and sufficient and comparable CO2e Footprints.

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