When it comes to tackling climate change, keeping materials and products in the economy for as long as possible would be one solution. This came to be known as a circular model, as opposed to a linear model, which goes in a straight line from raw material to waste.
The European Commission adopted the new circular economy action plan (CEAP) in March 2020, with the aim to make the circular economy a reality in the EU. Meanwhile, in Thailand it is slowly taking shape. Moreloop, a Bangkok-based start-up, is making strides towards turning the circular economy into a fact and has built an online marketplace for the purchase of surplus fabric from factories
Surplus fabric used to be known as dead-stock. This term has a negative connotation and customers felt that these raw materials had to be defective. Surplus fabric in garment industry mainly results from up to 10% extra fabric being ordered for each customer’s order, for contingencies during the manufacturing process. Embroidery thread and buttons are also common waste in industrial production and up to 25% of the fabric is wasted during the cutting process.
Buyers would sometimes purchase those fabrics in bulk at waste prices from textile mills, but it was more common for factories to store the fabrics in their warehouses, since it wasn’t lucrative to sell them.
From left to right, Thamonwan Virodchaiyan and Amorpol Huvanandana
Thamonwan Virodchaiyan is a second-generation garment manufacturer, whose family own a textile mill in Bangkok. After seeing all the leftover fabric piling up in the warehouses, she started looking for solutions to the waste problem in the textile industry.
“It became my pain point, I wanted to do something about it, because we did export products for European brands, so the fabric was of high quality. I just felt bad if we had to throw it away or destroy it or keep it until it’s not possible to use it anymore,” she says.
She joined forces with Amorpol Huvanandana, who has experience with digital marketplaces and banking. Together, they founded Moreloop.
“I wanted to make a change, become a change maker regarding waste material. It’s a subject that fascinates me. When I was younger, I learned that plastic takes 450 years to break down, so I used to have nightmares about waste taking over the world. In fewer than 30 years, that happened. So, I wanted to find a solution and one of the solutions I had heard of, which is interesting, is the circular economy. I wanted to test this concept by using the digital economy and digital systems to infuse this idea and to see whether it can happen,” Amorpol says.
The ideology of Moreloop seems attractive but, in reality, customers question the quality of surplus materials. Thamonwan emphasised that the communication with clients, who are unfamiliar with surplus material, is crucial.
“We face some difficulties when we communicate with buyers. Why can’t they have their pantone colour? Why can’t they have an exact product from their design? Using the leftovers is limited in terms of colour, quality and quantity of the fabric we have. I have to show them what the real leftovers in Moreloop are like. Customers are curious about the fabric quality. It means that the fabric and the products that we offer must be of the quality for which they are looking.’’
Both co-founders have worked on over four hundred orders for corporate uniforms, which is one of Moreloop’s main revenue streams. Focusing on the quality of their 3,000 different types of waste fabric and making products based on them when an order requires it, they have engaged in a process called “upcycling”, in which a company reuses discarded or waste material and gives it a new value.
The start-up has digitalised surplus fabrics from seventy different factories. Their inventory has well over one million yards of fabric. Around 10 tons, or about thirty thousand yards of fabric were used through the platform last year, and that volume has been growing by as much as 30% each year. The company’s objective is to prevent 1 million kilograms of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere by 2024.
In Thailand, there are around 33 million tons of industrial waste generated each year. It will take time for a circular industry to grow and be able to make full use of that waste. As of now, there are only a few pioneers in the market, but Amorpol and Thamonwan hope to see an equilibrium achieved between the linear and circular economies.
By Aymen Belkadi and Franc Han Shih
