Ecofuse is a new range of plant-based, low carbon nonwoven materials being launched by Canada’s Roswell Textiles that can provide carbon offsets and are intended to replace incumbent synthetic fabrics.
The company, based in Calgary, Alberta, developed, commercialised and scaled Canada’s first domestic supply of synthetic meltblown during the Covid-19 pandemic. During the crisis, it was able to scale production quickly and efficiently by engineering and manufacturing its own nonwoven production equipment in-house and making its first commercial sale of Canadian produced meltblown material in just two months.
Building on this succcess, Roswell is now launching the Ecofuse range of nonwoven materials that are plant based and manufactured from biopolymers, with similar technical specifications to polypropylene materials but with a 65% net carbon reduction.
The Ecofuse materials are already in commercial use in medical and filtration applications, with additional commercialisation processes underway for their use in hygiene, food and beverage packaging and construction. The Ecofuse meltblown materials currently in commercial use in regulated medical applications are certified 100% biobased by the United States Department of Agriculture BioPreferred Program.
Roswell says it employs proprietary production technologies that allow for the technical processing of biopolymers to achieve the high-performance requirements in nonwoven materials that have previously been impossible to achieve at commercial scale. Ecofuse materials are being used to increase the accomplishment of net zero carbon emissions by companies in their product lines, as well as helping them reduce their carbon emissions to be in compliance with federally and internationally mandated carbon reduction policies.
“It is our belief that the Ecofuse materials can drive meaningful and substantial change in the way in which we manufacture products, helping to reduce our collective carbon footprint by simply utilising materials that are plant based and return to the environment in a more sustainable circular process compared to synthetic plastics that will take thousands of years to degrade in our landfills,” says Kyle Fiolka, president of Roswell Textiles. “Small steps, like replacing the hundreds of thousands of tons of synthetic materials in HVAC filters with a plant based, sustainable alternative like Ecofuse can help reduce the overall net carbon footprint of that product. We are thrilled to be helping our partners achieve substantial outcomes in reducing their carbon emissions.”