Meet our Belgian spinning partner

Meet our Belgian spinning partner: European Spinning Group

The HNST production process starts with the harvest of old worn-out jeans. After extensive sorting and quality control the trousers will go to Germany, where they are mechanically recycled, resulting in recycled cotton fibers. Following, the recycled cotton fibers will find their way back to Belgium, to our expert spinning partner, European Spinning Group (ESG).

Because of the mechanical braking forces, recycled cotton fibers lengths are too short to create a fabric consisting of 100% recycled fibers. To attain good quality properties, ESG blends the recycled denim fibers with Tencel®. Tencel® is a low-impact lyocell fiber made from sustainably harvested eucalyptus wood by the Austrian company Lenzing. 

To prepare for spinning the fibers are first carded and sometimes combed. Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web. Subsequently, combing removes too short fibers by means of a rotating ring or rectilinear row of steel pins.

For denim yarn made out of recycled fibers, open-end spinning, also called rotor spinning, is being used. The combed fiber web coming from the card goes into the rotor and comes out twisted and wrapped up on a bobbin.The principle is comparable to pulling out a sheet from a rapidly twisting clothing dryer, the sheet would spin together as you pull it out.

The weft yarns for our HNST collection are made out of 50% recycled old denim (cotton) and 50% Tencel®. 

Through their state-of-the-art facility and strong leadership, ESG is pioneering in the development of sustainable yarns. During the production of each kg of HNST yarn they are able to save 3845 liters of water, 1,58 kg CO2 and 6,32 kWh of energy (compared with industry standards). HNST is proudly taking part in ESG's innovative #hackyourjeans project, through which we are, together, contributing to a more sustainable and circular textile industry. 

Read more about the HNST production process or discover more HNST stories.