Biodegradable and carbon neutral textiles, engineered from food waste.
ALT TEX is a Toronto-based biomaterials startup that has developed the world’s first biodegradable and carbon neutral fabric, engineered from the world’s largest landfill contributor - food waste. Polyester alone makes up 60% of the $2.5 trillion fashion industry and is the biggest blocker preventing brands from meeting sustainability mandates. The patent-pending ALT TEX fermentation technology creates a polyester alternative that works with the existing infrastructure to supply a sustainable, high performance and cost competitive polyester replacement to fashion brands, at scale. The product solves key problems for fashion brands, consumers, and the environment: (1) Fashion brands: ALT TEX sells fabric to fashion brands, allowing them to differentiate via sustainable options (sustainable fashion growing 11% CAGR) and hit sustainability targets, without sacrificing performance or changing their current supply chain. (2) Consumer: The ALT TEX fabric is projected to be half the price vs. other specialized sustainable alternatives (due to low-cost input and scalability), meaning greater accessibility. (3) Environment: A single shirt produced with ALT TEX fabric can divert 1 kg of food waste from landfills, 9 kg of carbon emissions from the air, and 4 g of micro-plastics from our waterways. Co-founders Myra and Avneet have worked together managing teams and projects for six years, with backgrounds in serial entrepreneurship, corporate sales at Fortune 500 companies, textile manufacturing and biochemistry. To date, ALT TEX has created their first fabric prototype that’s 70% stronger than cotton, secured $1M in LOIs and raised $2.3M.
Latest News
Active Founders
Myra Arshad, Founder
Hey, I'm Myra - Co-founder and CEO of ALT TEX. Coming from a family background in textile manufacturing, I'm disrupting the $2.5 trillion fashion industry with better and more sustainable materials. Prior to ALT TEX, I held corporate roles in sales and marketing at Fortune 500 companies, before founding fluidic – a direct to consumer lifestyle brand. Prior to fluidic, I built FarmBox, a Hult Prize backed, AI micro-farming technology that enabled food sustainability in refugee camps.
Avneet Ghotra, Founder
Hi, I'm Avneet - Co-founder and CTO of ALT TEX. I left medical school to build ALT TEX. With education and research background in biochemistry & environmental science, I lead the R&D behind ALT TEX’s food waste to fabric mission. Prior to medical school & ALT TEX, I founded Approaching Zero, a non-profit dedicated to reducing plastic pollution through production of reusable cotton produce bags. Continuing that vision, I am now building a global solution for fashion's polyester pollution.
Company Launches
Hey All! We’re Myra and Avneet, co-founders of ALT TEX. We’ve created the world’s first polyester-alternative fabric, made from food waste.
🌍 The problem: polyester is leading fashion’s GHG emissions, but has no circular alternative.
The fashion industry’s heavy reliance on petroleum-derived polyester textiles is a major contributor to the 10% of global GHG emissions the industry generates annually. The plastic-based material, found in 60% of the clothes we wear, creates over 50 million tons of global annual landfill waste, generates 35% of all ocean micro-plastics, and consumes 70 million barrels of oil each year.
Despite 1/3 of the fashion industry committing to 0 carbon emissions by 2050, polyester, the most widely used fabric, has no fully circular, carbon-neutral alternative.
At the same time, food waste is on the rise with 1 billion tons generated annually across the world. So, we’re using one problem 🍎 to fix the other 👕. Here’s how ⬇️
👕 The Solution: Fabric created from the world’s largest waste source - food waste.
ALT TEX reduces the fashion industry’s dependence on fossil fuels through its biodegradable and carbon-neutral textiles engineered from food waste. The patent-pending fermentation technology plugs into the existing polyester supply chain to provide fashion brands with a cradle-to-cradle polyester alternative without sacrificing performance.
The product solves key problems for fashion brands, consumers, and the environment:
- Fashion brands: ALT TEX sells fabric to fashion brands, allowing them to differentiate via sustainable options (sustainable fashion growing 11% CAGR) and hit sustainability targets, without sacrificing performance or changing their current supply chain.
- Consumer: The ALT TEX fabric is projected to be half the price vs. other specialized sustainable alternatives (due to low-cost input and scalability), meaning greater accessibility.
- Environment: A single shirt produced with ALT TEX fabric can divert 1 kg of food waste from landfills, 9 kg of carbon emissions from the air, and 4 g of micro-plastics from our waterways.
The Story & Future:
Myra and Avneet have worked on every school project together since the 9th grade. With Myra’s background in corporate sales and family history in the textile sector, alongside Avneet’s background in environmental science and biochemistry, the two came together in 2020 to build ALT TEX. Today, ALT TEX has created its fabric prototype, raised $2,300,000 USD in funding, secured $1,000,000 in pilot LOIs and has grown the team to 10.
How you can help:
As we scale out of the lab and into the market over the next year, we’re looking for:
- fashion brands interested in sourcing a sustainable polyester alternative
- food manufacturers looking for a sustainable way to re-purpose their waste
If you’re curious or have help/resources for us, please feel free to reach out!
🌐 thealttex.com | linkedin.com/company/alt-tex/
👩💻 @thealttex