Turning waste into fabric

Waste that littered streets used to insulate homes.

- 

Growing up on Taiwan's coast where west mollusc farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called Seawool.

Wang remembered that residents of his hometown of Yunlin used discarded oyster shells that littered streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes.

"They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls.

The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer," the 42 year old said.

"So I was curious about why oyster shells have such a miraculous effect." Wang's Creative Tech Textile company, established in 2010, was already producing an "eco-fabric" a polyester material made out of recycled plastic bottles - but he felt its texture was a bit "ordinary".

So he started working with a research institute to experiment making fabric out of the oyster shell residue, in 2013 coming up with the right formula that produces a material similar to wool.

Today, his factory in Taiwan uses nearly 100 tons of oyster shells a year to churn out around 900 tons of Seawool, a trademarked and patented fabric.