EP31: Why Most Clothes Are Made With Petroleum And How Kintra Fibers Is Changing That

You may think of cotton as the dominant source of clothing and apparel. For a long time, I certainly did. However, synthetic fibers actually make up 63% of all the fibers used for the clothing industry worldwide. Why is this important? Well nearly all of these synthetic fibers are derived from petroleum. We often think of the energy industry as the only area of focus for scaling back our use of fossil fuels in our fight against global warming and climate change. However the clothing industry accounts for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and the primary culprit here are petroleum derived synthetic fibers. So how do innovate ourselves out of this? In this episode we sit down with Alissa Baier-Lentz, co-founder of Kintra Fibers, a company utilizing natural feedstock to replace the monomers derived from petroleum to make synthetics far more sustainable and cleaner without sacrificing quality or durability. You can learn more about Kintra's incredible work here And don't forget to Follow Animalia on Instagram or on Twitter All Podcast listeners always get 10% of ALL products in our Merch Store at www.iloveanimalia.com using the code PODCASTERS IN THIS EPISODE: 2:00 - The role of synthetic textiles in fashion/apparel & climate 5:30 - Meet Alissa 13:30 - The low down of synthetic fibers and where they come from 24:00 - Shifting from petroleum to feedstocks 28:30 - Why this shift in synthetics has not happened sooner 34:40 - The biggest challenge ahead for Kintra 36:30 - Responsibility of consumer demand vs. corporate proactive change 44:40 - The full impact of moving from petroleum monomers to feedstock monomers 55:10 - Rapid Fire with Alissa