WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The Formary, the company which transformed Starbucks® coffee sacks into upholstery fabric, has unveiled its latest work, a rice straw fabric made from Chinese waste.

This fabric was developed with funding from Beef and Lamb New Zealand and with the assistance of Massey University Textiles Department in New Zealand. The Formary has created a new fabric from a blend of waste rice straw and strong wool according to Bernadette Casey, one of the company directors.

The Formary is a sustainable textile design company specializing in the redesign of large volume industrial and agricultural fibers.

“China produces approximately two hundred million tons of rice per year resulting in vast amounts of waste rice straw from the harvest,” she said.Burning the unused straw not only affects air quality in China but also impacts on individual health and wellbeing,” she explained. The Formary™ team on Savile Row: Peter Thompson, Bernadette Casey, Sally Shanks, Doug Trotter

“Converting the waste straw into textiles fits with the Chinese Government’s current Five Year Plan, specifically their target to reuse seventy five percent of rice straw generated,” Casey said.

The Formary’s solution of blending straw with wool has created a hard wearing but beautiful fabric that not only provides a valuable solution to a key waste stream within China, but also takes New Zealand strong wool into the rapidly expanding sustainable market,” she continued.

“With the world’s population predicted to swell by another two billion in the next forty years, it is anticipated that farmers will need to grow fifty percent more food to meet population demand. Our concept of creating a range of fabrics as a bi-product of food crops reduces reliance on crops grown for their fiber alone, freeing up precious arable land for food production. This increases the value of the crop as well as the productivity of the land,” she said. “Our meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing was very successful with target commercialisation of our fabric at the next rice harvest in October,” 

“We work with multinational companies and government organizations worldwide providing textile solutions for large volume textile waste streams. We license our technology to manufacturers around the world. Our products are currently being manufactured in Germany, Italy and New Zealand with the commercialization of our rice straw fabric project is underway in China.”

WoJo® is The Formary’s reportedly high performing recycled coffee sack and wool upholstery fabric developed for Starbucks. It is a blend of 30 percent jute from the 300,000 coffee sacks used by Starbucks annually and 70 percent New Zealand wool. The fabric is used on seating in Starbucks stores in the UK and Europe but now, this product is also available for the domestic market, Casey said.