PiñaYarn

The world generates a colossal amount of food waste - most estimates put it around the 2.5 billion tons per year mark - and while it will take a lot to stem this flow of waste, designers are beginning to find ways to put it to better use. Plant-based textiles is one such emerging area of innovation, but not all plant-based, fruit-based and vegetable-based materials are created equal.

In fact, a large proportion of them include a tiny bit of plant waste and a whole load of plastic, which is why we’re intrigued by Ananas Anam’s latest offering - PiñaYarn. While the company’s first foray into pineapple-based materials - PiñaTex - falls under the plastic category above, PiñaYarn is made from a combination of pineapple leaf fibre and Tencel. Nothing else. Created for the fashion and interiors industries, this farm-to-fibre yarn is antibacterial, mixable and recyclable, but we’re still yet to see how scalable it is in the long-term as it emerges from the lab.