Lululemon is betting Epoch Biodesign can eat its own shorts, literally

As the world increases electricity, oil and gas companies are counting plastics driving profits in the future. But not if Jacob Nathan has anything to say about it.

Nathan began looking for a way to break down plastic when he was in high school. Now, as the founder and CEO of Epoch Biodesignhas found a way to use enzymes to “transform this unusual waste” into a form ready to make more plastic, he told TechCrunch.

“For us, a bar of fabric is like a barrel of oil,” Nathan said, implying that waste fabric, not oil, is what Epoch is about. And unlike a barrel of oil, the price of oil will not depend on the whims of world leaders.

The Epoch process focuses on breaking down pre- and post-consumer plastic waste into monomers – the building blocks from which plastic is made. To do this, they rely on enzymes, the machinery of cells. But because biology can be unpredictable, the company only uses enzymes, not the microbes that produce them. To obtain the drug, Epoch is working with industrial suppliers, who already produce enzymes by the tons.

Using multiple enzymes, Epoch can recover more than 90% of the target monomers. “The only thing left after our work is the paint, which is captured and can be disposed of separately,” said Nathan.

The process is being applied for the first time to nylon 6,6, a high-strength synthetic material used in everything from clothing to airbags, carpets to seat belts.

“That’s the original thread. That’s what the DuPont guys were cooking up. The reason we still use it is because it’s the best at what it does. We can’t replace it in all these applications,” Nathan said.

The timing couldn’t be better, Nathan said. “In the last few weeks, the price of nylon 6.6 and other materials has increased by as much as 150%,” said Nathan. Starting with disposable fabrics instead of fossil fuels, Epoch can avoid that instability altogether. “If we decouple manufacturing from extraction, recycling, and immobilization from carbon footprints, we can create sustainability.”

The nose has been associated with investors, including the clothing giant Lululemon, which produces mountains of clothing made of plastic. Lululemon recently participated in a $12 million investment that included Exantia, Happiness Capital, Kompas VC, and Leitmotif.

The promotion will help fund exhibitions near Imperial College London; the company plans to follow this with a commercial facility that is expected to come online in 2028 and is expected to produce 20,000 tons of monomer per year.

Once that’s enough, Nathan said Epoch can start working on recycling other plastics. The technology “can be adapted to different materials and plastics,” he said. “Nylon 6,6 will reach its peak before others, but we have exciting things coming.”