Textiles are a complex industry that has exploded tremendously over the past couple of years. Companies like H&M and Zara have played a heavy role in this boom through their fast-fashion business models. A term coined for any type of clothing design that moves quickly from the catwalk to retailers to take advantage of trends (Investopedia, 2022). In spite of the quick life cycle of these products, it has many disadvantages, including cheap materials, pollution through non-recyclable materials, and exploitative labor practices.
However, this year, Pablo V. Cazares and Ava Zavala have taken on the Cleantech Challenge to offer better textiles for everyday clothing.
Cazares and Zavala crossed paths during one of their classes at Portland State University. “We were both in a weaving class, [...] and Ava was weaving at this just incredibly high technical, beautiful degree, and I thought I want that person on my team for something,” says Cazares.
As fate would have it, this instinct would soon become something big.
As time passed, Cazares heard about the Cleantech Challenge and was instantly intrigued.
“I heard about Cleantech, and I was immediately interested because it had the word challenge in it. And also, it has this feature of kind of open experimentation in the name of creating something good for the world.”
Zavala adds, “Pablo came to me and asked me if I wanted to be a part of the team with this crazy idea of making kombucha into fabric, and I thought that sounded amazing.”
What seemed like a small connection made in weaving class eventually bloomed into two individuals working together to bring about change, hence the birth of Team ‘Bucha. A team that is taking kombucha scoby, which is a kind of pond scum that grows and brews kombucha, and turning it into textiles.
The fuel behind this project comes from first-hand experiences within the industry.
“In my previous life as a fashion designer, I got to tour factories and learn a lot about the industry. And the brand I was working for had all the best practices. They had all the eco-friendly qualifications and all the humanitarian sort of audits checked off. And it still had such a tremendous amount of waste,” says Cazares.
Cazares adds by saying, “I wanted to create something that would help kind of clean up the apparel industry.”
Even with all of the inspiration and collaboration behind the project, there have still been major challenges.
“One of the big challenges is just getting enough of this scoby material to actually create fibers from. So we’re working with some local kombucha brewing businesses and getting their excess scoby material that would just be going into the compost or trash,” says Cazares.
However, to mitigate a lot of these challenges, the team has been tapping into their networks of mentors and friends to help access the necessary resources to continue developing their prototype.
Furthermore, they pay tribute to the Cleantech Challenge.
“By participating in the Cleantech Challenge and seeing how many ways that one department or one facet of the university can connect to everything else [...]. So just seeing the scope of connections that are possible made me realize how many resources are available if you just ask and investigate openly,” says Cazares.
The duo also share what they hope to get out of this experience after going through the Cleantech Challenge.
“A lot of the time, having an idea and trying to push it forward into the world requires a lot of work and a lot of convincing people. And so, being in an organization that the default is yes, let’s figure that out and push it, and let’s push it further is incredible. So I’m just interested to see how far we can go,” says Cazares.
Zavala adds, “I really like the challenge aspect, as well as I wasn’t very aware of like the entrepreneurship aspect, and I’ve always been on the artsy side of things. So being on the business side of things is a really nice change of perspective.”
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