This New Plant-Based T-Shirt Decomposes in 12 Weeks

This month, clothing brand Vollebak will debut its Plant and Algae T-shirt, made from sustainably sourced wood and algae that will decompose in 12 weeks. When wearers are done using it, the vegan shirt can be placed in the compost or buried in soil, where it biodegrades and turns into worm food. Vollebak—a five-year-old startup known for its high-tech fabrics—created the T-shirt from wood pulp from eucalyptus, beech, and spruce that is certified sustainable from the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), which is chipped, pulped, and then turned into fiber. The T-shirt is decorated with a large green rectangle on the front, made using printable ink from algae. To make the ink, algae water is passed through a filter, creating a soupy algae paste that is then dried in the sun to create a fine green powder which is mixed with a water-based binder to create algae ink. Volleback previously created clothing from innovative materials such as carbon fiber and graphene.