Turkey-based Kipas will participate in the €6.7 million European Union-funded New Cotton Project, involving brands Adidas and H&M. Within this project, Kipas will manufacture denim fabrics based on cellulose-based fibers of Infinited Fiber Company of Finland, made from post-consumer textile waste that has been collected, sorted and regenerated.

Adidas and H&M will establish take-back programs to collect the clothing that is produced, to determine the next phase in their lifecycle. Clothing that can no longer be worn will be returned to Infinited, for regeneration into new fibers, further contributing to a circular economy in which textiles never go to waste, but instead are reused, recycled or turned into new garments.

The project aims to prove that circular, sustainable fashion can be achieved and even bigger circular initiatives can be launched by the industry in future. A Monforts customer, Kipas is currently installing its third Monforts Montex stenter in Kahramanmaras. The company is also installing a third Monfortex compressive shrinkage system in a combined configuration dedicated to denim production at its Kahramanmaras site in Turkey. This follows the successful installation and commissioning of the second Montex and Monfortex lines at the Kahramanmaras plant in 2018, which Kipas vice chairman of the Board Ahmet Oksuz said had immediately exceeded expectations.

The latest Montex stenter now being installed at Kipas is a 12-chamber unit with a working width of 2 metres featuring all of the latest automation features. The Monfortex unit, also with a working width of 2 metres, is in a ‘double rubber’ configuration, comprising two compressive shrinkage units and two felt calenders in line. This allows the heat setting of elastane fibres and the residual shrinkage of the denim to be carried out simultaneously, for a significant increase in production speeds.