Transforming textile waste into building and decoration materials: this was her graduation subject during her architecture studies. She turned it into a business. This young French woman is Clarisse Merlet the founder of FabBRICK. She relies on ecological awareness as a development value.
"Waste represents a significant resource, particularly in France, so I thought it would be interesting to use some of it to create a new material. [...] Cotton is a very good insulator, so I thought about textiles, because it is also a very polluting industry, so it was interesting to find another way to recycle it" says Clarisse Merlet, founder of FabBRICK.
Some figures:
Globally, 395 billion euros (USD 440 billion) is lost through the waste of clothing that is still in a wearable state.
In Europe, 4 million tonnes of clothing waste are thrown away every year.
In France, 624,000 tonnes of textiles are put on the market, i.e. about 10 kilograms per inhabitant per year, and less than a third of textiles are collected and sorted.
In France, since 1 January 2022, the AGEC law "Anti-Waste Circular Economy", which aims to reduce waste, prohibits the destruction of unsold goods and forces producers, importers and distributors to reuse or recycle their products.
However, out of the 195,000 tonnes of clothing and textiles collected each year, 60% of it - mainly cotton - is in good condition and can be reused. At a time when the depletion of natural resources is clear, FabBRICK proposes to fight against textile waste by reusing discarded clothing to create an innovative construction material.
FabBRICK has teamed up with the textile sorting and recycling company Gebetex, to recycle clothes that are too damaged to be reused. After collection, they are simply shredded and mixed with a unique ecological glue, with the aim of limiting the transformation process to a minimum. They are then compressed into custom-made moulds to become bricks.
The brand "Jules" contacted the young company to make the partitions and furniture for their new "0 WASTE" shop.
Other major clothing brands have followed suit, but there are other more surprising companies that seek to recycle their uniforms.
Even the luxury industry is now asking for new products, including recycled leather.
FabBRICK's founder is now having to turn down orders to take the time to think about her development
Growth as the only objective seems to be out of fashion for the young entrepreneur who is impatiently awaiting her new automated brick press. For an investment of 100,000 euros, she entrusted the project to a design office last year and the new machine should arrive next spring.
To limit transport, the startup has set up a new workshop in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, using rail freight, and plans to eventually set up several production workshops in France and why not abroad where needs are growing.
FabBRICK has just conducted conclusive tests on bricks made from surgical masks.
To learn more, watch this video: