Human Material Loop is a material innovation company developing technologies, materials and products from waste keratin protein fiber for the development of high-performance products for the textile industry with zero negative impact on the environment.
Cross-border/international
Netherlands
Germany
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Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
WORTH Project
No
Yes
2022-11-15
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Human Material Loop Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Zsofia Last name of representative: Kollar Gender: Female Nationality: Hungary Function: Founder Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Netherlands Town: Sittard Postal code: 6135KR Country: Netherlands Direct Tel:+31631684338 E-mail:zsofia@humanmaterialloop.com Website:https://humanmaterialloop.com/
Developing prototypes - Human Material Loop
Humans have altered 70% of Earth's land surface causing soil erosion and poor air quality, polluting water, exploiting animals, and poisoning people. While we are destroying our ecosystem our endless waste stream is going no elsewhere other than our backyard. Change is needed. We are THE CAUSE of the climate crisis and the disruption of the ecosystem, but we can be part of THE SOLUTION. HUMAN MATERIAL LOOP is an innovation company focusing on the utilization of waste human hair for the development of high-performing products across various industries with the aim of empowering humans to be the solution. We are on a mission to develop high-performance textiles within a closed-loop recycling system & by using locally sourced materials our aim is to reduce the fossil fuels and associated pollutants including greenhouse gas emissions required for shipping. By supporting local businesses we aim to feed the regional economy. Small-scale local production helps to eliminate the waste of unneeded products made to adhere to overseas minimums and reduce emissions and energy usage. Local production pushes for accountable ethical production and labor, where the environmental impacts would directly affect the consumers thereby eyes cannot be closed on overseas factory pollutants and working conditions. We are a committed team of designers, business developers, researchers, scientists, and engineers who deeply care about the future of this planet & people. Our mission is to change the game and show that we can manufacture without any negative impact on the environment. We do not compromise on performance, ethics, and the environment.
climate solution
textile innovation
material science
zero waste
circular economy
Wool is a keratin protein fiber, just as our hair. Our own hair made of the same keratin proteins as sheep wool or alpaca - we know well the properties of a wool sweater - how warm it is and how durable it is. But we know so little about what it takes to produce that wool sweater -the production of sheep's wool is more polluting – for cradle-to-gate environmental impact per kilogram of material – than that of acrylic, polyester, spandex, and rayon fibers.
There is an estimated 72 million kg of human hair waste generated just in Europe every year. Looking at the possibilities of this readily available raw material shows great potential for its integration into the textile industry and its impact to the planet. Human hair is a keratin protein fiber, just like wool or alpaca, a material that accumulates in large amounts all over the world, degrading no soil, polluting no water, and using no pesticides. The local availability makes it possible to produce locally, boosting local economies with monitored and ethical labor.
Human Material Loop develops high-performance textile with the lowest carbon footprint possible from waste human hair. Utilizing keratin protein fiber waste to create a true textile revolution, pushing for a zero-waste society, a guiltless textile and fashion industry.
The textile industry degrades soil, contributes to deforestation, pollutes water and air, uses toxic chemicals and exploits people and animals. By integrating waste keratin protein fiber from the beauty industry, we can achieve a major transformation - our ultimate goal is to massively reduce all the negative impacts of the industry, the realistic goal will be more clear once we conduct our LCA. We not only envision to transform the industry itself, but also enables thousands of beauty salons to operate on a zero waste basis, and allow every single individual to contribute to make this planet more livable for the future generations. We are an ambitious team and we will not rest until our goals are met and we created a global transformation.
Every technology that has been created served the comfort of humanity, every disruption of the ecosystem was because of our comfort - we have been selfishly exploiting everything around us, but aren’t we part of this ecosystem after all? Why do we behave that we are above this ecosystem and believe we can exploit this system endlessly. We know it long enough that we cannot operate in the way we do today, recycled polyester is still releasing microplastic to our blood and lungs, vegan leather is still plastic, we still poision over 5 million people every year with cotton pesticides - we can believe in the fairy tale that putting a band aid to the problems will heal the problem itself, but it is your duty to look at your children’s eye to tell them, you didn’t push for a change.
Human Material Loop is the biggest revolution of humankind, because it will radically transform not just our production and supply chain, but also gives an opportunity for everybody to be part of the solution.
When I was sitting in the hair salon, seeing all that hair swept to the bin, I couldn’t stop thinking what we can do this with all these waste. We all use and wear hair from other animals, why not human? Everybody goes to a hair salon, gets a haircut, looks good, feels good - but can you imagine leaving that hair salon that you don’t only look good, but also contributing to a better future? Can you imagine when we integrate 500 million kg human hair fibers to the global fiber production, how big of an impact we can create? Can you imagine how much CO2, water pollution, toxic chemicals, soil degradation we saved?
We are THE CAUSE of climate crisis and the disruption of the ecosystem, but we can be part of THE SOLUTION.
HUMAN MATERIAL LOOP is an innovation company focusing on the utilisation of waste human hair for the development of high-performing products across various industries with the aim of empowering humans to be the solution.
Refuse & rethink
While human hair the same keratin protein fiber as wool, it goes to landfills or incinierators all over the world. A valuable raw material that does not degrade any soil, uses no pesticides, pollutes no water, natural and a globally available raw material. Human hair is as strong as steel in the same diameter, it can be stretched up one and half time its original lengths before breaking. The centuries long exploatiton of animals, resources, ecosystems caused the current climate crisis and scarcity of raw materials. Human Material Loop took on the mission to rethink our raw material supplies, and use what is available around us. Our ultimate goal is to take 5% of the global fiber production, to refuse the currently used harmful materials such as the synthetic textiles that are harming the environment, ourselves and comes from a limited resource. We have engineered a process that can serve as plug in solution in any factory in the world, that processes wool, providing an alternative material with zero negative impact on the environment.
Reduce
Human Hair is natural fiber, therefore products made of human hair will degrade and don’t release toxic substances to the environment. Our raw material comes from the waste of hair salons, we are directly reducing municipal waste streams. By integrating a waste material to our production system, we reduce the currently used virgin materials on the market.
Re-use
By integrating waste human hair in our production system we are directly reducing waste and giving value to this waste. Human hair products after their use can be repurposed as fertilizers or insulation fillers as well to ensure no waste products after the first purpose.
Human Material Loop participated in several business development programs, ImpactHub Amsterdam - Business Model challenge, Go-NH Accelerator, Worth Project EU where extraordinary mentors from the industry joined the board and helping the company to grow. Along the way a passionate and experienced team has formed.
Establishing partnerships with knowledge and research institutes, and industry partners are the constant drive to bring innovation to the market. To secure the raw material already established companies are supplying us with raw materials. Currently, hundreds of hair salons are collecting their waste streams in Europe and the number of salons are rapidly growing.
Design system thinking - textile design - future of manufacturing
During the process of designing our prototype garments, we connected the cosmetic industry to the textile industry, and by referencing the tradition of textile making we created an alternative material to renew the textile industry's material usage.
With our prototypes both in public presentations and online, we have questioned the general perception of what is the value of human waste and how we can think of alternative solutions for the future. We all know recycled polyester still releases microplastic into the environment, even certified cotton still needs a lot of water, and we cannot rely on oversea's raw materials or production. We have questioned the general public about if our own waste can be the solution to today's pollution, whether we could boost local economies, and make a zero-waste society possible. We not just questioned the status quo of our production systems and way of living but also inspired others to think of alternatives and new solutions.
- Natural material
- Engaging story behind the brand
- Guilt & Cruelty Free
- Sustainable sourcing and production
- Globally available plug-in technology
- Hypoallergenic material by nature
- High-performance
- Constant feed of supply chain - fast delivery
- Unexpected and storytelling innovation & material
- Full traceability
Since 2021 Zsofia Kollar explored the possibilities to develop a technology that can utilize hair waste form hair salons. Designers, engineers and scientist are involved to bring an innovation to the market that has zero negative impact on the environment and to the people.
industries to integrate our material:
- textile & fashion
- home textiles
- interior
- architecture
- automobile
The textile industry is the second largest polluting industry just after the oil industry. The industry itself heavily degrades soil, pollutes water with its dying processes, and contributes to a huge amount CO2 emissions during its processing. Today more than 60% of the total fiber production is synthetic fibers, which contributes to three major problems: 1. Limited fossil fuels and polluting processes in production, 2. Synethic fibers takes hundreds of years before decomposing, yearly more tha 91 million TONS of textile is discarded, 3. synthetic fibers are the major contributors for microplastics. Recent study revealed that 77% of people have microplastics in their blood, plastics are even found in unborn fetuses.
When we look at the textile industry and its natural resources such as cotton or wool production,we face other major contributors to climate change. Cotton production uses huge amount water for its production, and yearly more than 5 million people are poisoned due to cotton pesticides. If we look at the wool industry, and the more than 1 billion sheeps that we source the raw material from we face a huge methane problem. A sheep emits 30 liters of methane a day. Wool production is also energy, labour and chemical intensive, not to mention the animal abuse involved in the production.
The textile industry is facing major challenges to find new alternative raw materials, which does not degrade any soil, does not contribute to deforestation, uses no toxic chemicals and a renewable resource that can be truly circular. The major emissions within the industry comes from the cultivation and processing of raw material and transport. The industry is mostly operating in Asia with an often unreliable supply chain and transport logistics.
