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SMALL BUSINESS
Weaving a Sustainable Future Sci-Lume Labs is manufacturing fibers that could revolutionize what is used to make clothing and could reduce the industry’s dependence on petroleumbased fibers. And the manufacturing world is noticing: The H&M Foundation named the company as a finalist for its 2023 Global Change Award. BY K AYTE SPILLMAN PHOTOS BY LOGAN WALCHER
E V E RY Y E A R , M A N U FAC T U R E R S produce more
than 100 metric tons of fibers to make clothing. To put that massive number in context, that’s the equivalent of filling 13 Boeing 747s full of polyester fibers — every hour. And then this: Consumers dispose of one garbage truck of clothing every second and wear an article of clothing on average seven times. For Oliver Shafaat, a Caltech postdoctoral scholar and founder and president of Sci-Lume Labs, this was too big an environmental concern to ignore — and one he thought he could solve. “From the creation, through the use, through the microfiber shedding to the end of life, apparel impacts the world at a massive scale,” he said. “It's just sort of crazy. Like, how do you buy clothes and only wear them seven times? And then you throw them away?” Shafaat worked in Japan for almost five years as a fiber research and development manager with a Japanese biotech company working on sustainable synthetic fibers and resins. When he and his wife moved back to her hometown in Edmond, Shafaat dived in to solve the problem stateside. “The question that I was trying to answer is, ‘How can we actually make materials that are circular?” he said. “We need to make sure that when they do end up in the environment, they're not there forever.” He began by working on a better fiber to make clothes with from the beginning. “I'm not going to be able to convince people to wear clothes more or just not buy more clothes,” Shafaat said. “But I can try to find new materials that maybe harness the best of the synthetic fibers where they
Sci-Lume Labs founder Oliver Shafaat stands behind plants he is using to test the biodegradability of his invented fiber.