From crop waste to clothing: new research takes a first step
Testing wheat straw, oat husks, potatoes and sugar beet, scientists identify promising candidates to make future fibres from farm waste.
By Emma Bryce
June 20, 2025
One group of researchers have chanced upon a creative solution for agricultural waste: turning it into fabric.
In a new study, they explain that agricultural waste streams can produce a promising pulp that can be transformed into clothes, whilst simultaneously reducing dependence on water-intensive cotton, and wood fiber, which is in high demand for other uses.
The new study was based in Sweden, where almost one-third of the agricultural area is devoted to cereal crops like oats and wheat. A large portion of the remaining agricultural area is dedicated to potatoes and sugar beet. Considering the steady waste streams that these four crops generate, the researchers saw an opportunity to fill the so-called ‘cellulose gap’ created by increasing demand on the limited global cotton supply.
They started their experiments with samples of each crop, mostly provided by local industries, in the form of wheat straw, oat husks, potato pulp, and pressed sugar beets. Each sample was dried, and then the researchers applied a multi-step process that included a stage called soda pulping. In this process, samples were boiled in lye, a critical step that frees the cellulose fibers within by dissolving the lignin that binds them together.
A benefit of soda pulping is that it’s less chemical-intensive than processes designed to extract cellulose from wood, which is now increasingly used to make clothing fibres.
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On each resulting sample of plant pulp, the researchers quantified the carbon content and did a fibre analysis, which showed that beet and potato had a less defined fibre structure than the wheat and oat pulp, and so the researchers decided to go ahead with just the latter two.
Further processing on those successfully turned them into a mash-like substance called ‘dissolving pulp’, which can technically then be further processed to produce textile fibers.
The researchers weren’t only interested in whether they could turn farm waste into fibers, but also what the impact of this potential new material would be. When they ran a full lifecycle analysis on wheat and oat mash, it produced a mixed picture, showing that while oat- and wheat-derived pulp had a relatively low footprint, both contributed more to climate change than fibers derived from wood.
This is explained by the fact that the farmland cultivation of crops produces more greenhouse footprint on account of fertilizers and other aspects of farming, compared to tree plantations which don’t require the same inputs and also absorb significant quantities of carbon through their growth. That said, on multiple other indicators that the researchers measured through the lifecycle analysis, wheat pulp in particular performed better than wood.
There are other sustainability reasons to increase the share of waste-derived fibers in fabric-making. For one, wood as a material is already valued for so many other arguably more sustainable applications in society, such as building materials. Using it to fill the cellulose gap may divert it from these other more important uses, the researchers say. And farm waste could relieve some demand for cotton, and thereby reduce the water-intensity of this crop and our clothes.
Finally, while agricultural waste streams are often recycled back into fields as mulch, used to feed animals, or even to make building material, plenty of it also ends up simply being burned. Surely turning this valuable raw material into clothing fiber is the preferable alternative, the study suggests.
Plenty would still need to happen for crop waste to become clothing, but the study takes the first step, showing that more sustainable fashion lies within our grasp. “We really shouldn’t disregard the opportunity to use this type of cellulose stream for our future clothing,” they say.
Bernin et. al. “Producing dissolving pulp from agricultural waste.” RCS Sustainability. 2025.