In the spring of 2018, as part of my effort to find promising pioneers in sustainable clothing, I traveled to Kristinehamn, a small town on the southern corner of the Värmland region of Sweden. Värmland was nicknamed the Paper Province because approximately 200 companies within its borders are dedicated to pulping Sweden’s trees, primarily for paper products. And I’d heard that the smallest of these operations, a startup called re:newcell, is taking this pulping tradition in a very promising, new direction.

After a short taxi ride down a forested road, I arrive at a small, nondescript modern building, where I’m greeted by Mattias Jonsson, re:newcell’s CEO. Jonsson immediately hands me a hard hat, then ushers me inside a plant designed to redefine the concept of textile recycling. Inside a metal and concrete room that’s about 2,000 square meters, two metal cubes of dense piping and machinery about 10 feet high stand across from each other, puddles of pulp sitting below them on the concrete floor. The air smells tangy and rotten.

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