We had taken notice in the possibilities of compostable polyester since our company’s founding in 2010, but when we started the development and manufacturing process for commercialization, it was a completely new challenge and unchartered territory. It took an incredible amount of trial and error just to produce a single strand of yarn, let alone clothing. For example, to create durable clothes, it is essential to create strong yarn. However, for this new material we needed to make yarns that were tough and durable, yet just barely weak enough so that the bacteria within the compost could successfully break it down. This extremely delicate balance proved to be difficult. In addition, due to the unknown nature of the yarns at the time, we encountered problems such as the needles of the knitting machine breaking because the yarn thickness was not uniform, and the fabric being too transparent.

Nevertheless, we succeeded in commercializing this material, thanks to our company’s united effort of focusing solely on what we want to do, rather than what we can do now. Compostable polyester has the potential to create a sustainable society.

For example, by switching the polyester used in clothing to compostable polyester, this would significantly reduce our impact on the planet.

However, we do understand it is not an easy task to spread awareness of our compostable fabrics among society. Strict measures would need to be taken for the collection and disposal of the clothing, but we believe it is well worth the challenge. We take great pride in the fact that as fabric supplier we have the spent countless hours among a large variety of fabrics and will continue to develop new and better fabrics and clothing to promote compostable polyester as an eco-friendly alternative.

Jun Miyamoto, Chairman, V&A Japan Corporation