In Los Angeles, startup Mi Terro is converting spoiled milk into T-shirts that have functional benefits for skin.
The company has developed a protein activation and self-assembly purification technology to extract protein from bacteria in spoiled milk. Dynamic flow shear spinning then spins the clean protein into biodegradable yarn. The process is the brainchild of CEO Robert Luo, who visited his uncle’s dairy farm in China and was surprised how much spoiled milk is discarded along the dairy supply chain. According to Mi Terro, 128 million gallons of mile are wasted annually. Producing that much milk creates 3.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases.
Luo tells interestingengineering.com that the resulting t-shirts are anti-wrinkle, don’t smell, require 60% less water to produce than a conventional cotton top, and even contain 18 amino acids that “can nourish and improve skin texture.” The company is looking at other end products and protein wastes, he adds.