It’s the inner core of the hemp plant that remains after the fibers, seeds and flowers have been removed, what’s left after the traditionally valuable parts are put to various uses. That’s still 70% to 90% of the plant and that’s where Taylor Heisley-Cook and David Mun come in.
They are making clothes from agricultural waste — or more precisely taking that biomass and turning it into a new and sustainable material for fabric.
The Hurd Co. began as a thesis project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where Heisley-Cook and Mun met at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, and today they have built a pilot facility with a capacity to produce 10 kilograms of pulp each day. That’s enough to make sample garments.
“So that’s where we got our start,” Heisely-Cook said. “That’s where we got our name."
To move away from fast fashion and environmentally unsuitable fabrics, the industry needs a sustainable source. Fibers such as viscose, rayon, lyocell and modal are derived from wood pulp, then undergo a chemical process to create fabric and so fall into a class called man-made cellulosic fabric. The Hurd Co. is substituting the agriculture waste for trees to create a man-made cellulosic pulp it calls agrilose.