Environmental Textile Manufacturing

With the worldwide focus on sustainability affecting virtually every economic sector, the textile industry is increasingly turning to recycled materials, natural fibers, and eco-friendly production methods.

At Apex Mills, we promote environmentally friendly textile manufacturing processes while offering leading-edge specialty fabrics that solve problems in challenging industrial sectors. Our processes include wastewater treatment systems, scrap and waste recycling programs, and offering our customers eco-friendly fabrics using post-consumer, and post-industrial recycled yarns. We’re proud to contribute our expertise and innovations to bring greater sustainability to the textile industry.

What Are Sustainable Fabrics?

A sustainable fabric can be made using resource-efficient processes with recycled materials, natural fibers, or other materials that contribute to a circular economy.

Fabrics, in general, cover a broad range of properties and types. Because of this variety, there is no one fabric that best represents the concept of a sustainable fabric. However, textiles made with natural fibers like hemp, bamboo, and organic cotton are top contenders in this space. The use of recycled and reclaimed fabrics is also critical for preventing existing textiles and components from ending up in landfills — end-of-life considerations are as important as manufacturing considerations. In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that textiles represented nearly 8% of solid waste in landfills.

How Apex Mills Uses Sustainable Fabrics

Apex Mills is dedicated to reducing our environmental impact and serving as a role model for the textile industry by promoting eco-friendly textile manufacturing practices everywhere we can. We offer our customers a variety of materials to produce sustainable fabrics, including and degradable yarns. The resulting textiles have a substantially lower environmental impact than traditional fabrics.

Insight Textiles, an Apex Mills Company recycles wastewater sludge into agriculture-grade compost. Liquids from the Woolwine, Virginia wastewater treatment facilities exceed state regulations before returning to the Smith River.  

One excellent example of our purpose-driven design is our EcoRich™ family of fabrics — an innovative product line that uses post-consumer and post-industrial yarns with characteristics that suit a wide range of applications. We can achieve target colors while reducing negative environmental impacts.

The Apex Mills engineering team can turn EcoRich™ yarns into textiles such as solid knits, mesh netting and 3D spacer fabrics in our ISO 9001:2015 certified facility. We work closely with our customers to produce fabrics that meet advanced needs like flame resistance, moisture management, antimicrobial properties, health and wellness, and the extreme durability required to withstand harsh industrial environments — and we do it all while remaining committed to sustainability in every step of the process – without using perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in materials or processing.

We closely and continuously evaluate our supply chain. Additionally, our sustainable textile products are made in the USA, lowering the amount of energy and carbon emissions necessary to get them to the customer.

Contact Apex Mills for Environmentally Conscious Fabric Solutions

Apex Mills has been a trusted name in the textile industry since 1943, and our commitment to sustainability and environmental textile manufacturing is at the core of everything we do. Our team specializes in developing and producing custom-engineered fabrics that suit applications in medical, automotive, military, aerospace, contract furniture, apparel, and other demanding industries, and we are constantly striving to find innovative ways to reduce our environmental footprint.

For more on our environmentally friendly manufacturing and sustainability practices, reach out to our team. If you have a textile product in mind and want to see what we can engineer for you, complete our questionnaire to be contacted by one of our fabric specialists.