Textile Waste Into Reusable Packaging : KIUD CEO Kaie Kaas-Ojavere

In this episode of Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors, we dive into an innovative solution tackling two major environmental challenges: textile waste and packaging sustainability. Kaie Kaas-Ojavere shares her journey from the fashion industry to co-founding KIUD, a company transforming textile waste into durable, reusable packaging. She explains how KIUD’s material is created, its benefits for e-commerce and circular systems, and the company’s vision for scaling globally.

Kaie also discusses the challenges of textile recycling, the importance of controlled waste streams, and how KIUD’s boxes have already proven their durability in real-world use cases. With extended producer responsibility and packaging regulations on the rise, Kaie highlights why reusable packaging is gaining traction and how KIUD is leading the way.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Kaie’s background in fashion and why she pivoted to sustainability
• The origin of KIUD and its mission to repurpose textile waste
• How KIUD’s packaging is made and why it’s different from cardboard
• Benefits of reusable packaging for e-commerce and telecom industries
• Challenges in textile recycling and scaling post-consumer waste solutions
• Durability testing: boxes lasting 10–15 reuse cycles
• Printing options and branding considerations for KIUD packaging
• Future plans: expanding globally and improving material strength
• Business model for fashion brands: recycling + buy-back commitment
• Potential applications beyond packaging (industrial, hospitality, etc.)

Resources Mentioned:

KIUD official website: www.kiud.io
LinkedIn: KIUD Company Page
EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR)

Contact:

To learn more or request samples, visit www.kiud.io or connect with Kaie Kaas on LinkedIn.

Closing Thoughts:

Kaie and Cory emphasize the importance of creative solutions to reduce waste and promote circularity. KIUD’s approach demonstrates how innovation can turn industry byproducts into valuable resources, paving the way for a more sustainable future in packaging.

Thank you for tuning in to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors!

Connect with Cory

Connect with Cory on LinkedIn here: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap. 

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:06

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Corey Connors, presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Corey Connors. In today's episode, I connected with Kai Kass, the co-founder and CEO of KaiU. They are using the abundant supply of textile waste to make their usable packaging. It truly is an exciting idea. I'd also like to thank our sponsors, 3M, SpecRite, and Lorax EPI. We couldn't do this show without them. Welcome to Sustainable Packaging Podcast with Corey Connors. I'm so excited for today's guest, Kaya Kass from Qt, which is a very fascinating new company making some big impact on the sustainable packaging world. Welcome, Kaya. Thank you. Glad to be here. Really appreciate you making some time. We we met at the Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht, which was an incredible event. Just a few weeks ago now. Yes. Yeah, so let's talk about you first before we go into your company. Your background is not really like a normal packaging background. What made you want to co-found a company and be the CEO of a startup like this? Yeah, uh, that's really the fascinating story behind this. My background is uh from fashion and textile industry, where I have been more than 20 years and managing um the whole chain from the design ideas, production, selling, marketing, uh, expanding new markets. So I have seen all bits and pieces of uh textile industry, and obviously that's why I also know that the problems and the challenges this industry is creating to the world. And um, and one day, many of us thinking about what to do with the rest of their lives, and um, I thought that I really want to make an impact to make the textile and fashion industry better, and really to create something tangible in terms of solution. And I was looking for the ideas, I wrote several business plans like rental of clothing and resale and all this, but that's that wasn't it. And then I met my co-founder, Lise, who is a textile engineer, and she had an idea, she had already a little prototype that she had made the packaging material from textile waste. And then the life palm went on, and I said, that's it, that's it. Um we're gonna join forces and we will we're gonna make a real real impact. So instead of creating more clothes or even more some business models around selling more clothes, so I thought this is a perfect idea to actually use the waste from one industry and use this as a raw material for another industry, where we, as you know, we have also a lot of challenges. Well done, congratulations. I think what you've come up with and your your partner have come up with is incredible. A lot of people don't know that there is a massive amount of waste in in the textile or clothing industry that is produced daily. And uh it's it's a real problem with fast fashion and all of these things. You know, people will buy clothes and wear them once or a few times and throw them out. And I think what you've come up with here solves two problems, really the use of a waste stream and a reusable packaging material for the sustainable packaging industry. So congratulations. Yes, maybe just to add that um I um I'm really happy that I see that more and more people actually uh recognizing the textile waste problem, even men now know they have seen the documentaries and all this. But but that the problem is that the recycling uh of the textile waste um have developed really slowly, and there are not many solutions, and uh and it's very, very expensive, and there are uh other challenges. And that's why we thought that actually this very like a simple idea of using uh this waste and mechanically with uh with a very low uh energy input to turn it into material and to scale these kinds of ideas, you need a product that is actually needed and useful. And packaging is something that is all the time needed, and in a in a place where we see the e-commerce still uh growing and growing. So we thought this is this is the idea to to join these things. It makes perfect sense to me. And uh I when I saw your products that you were offering, I thought, wow, that's exactly right. That's the kind of thing we need in the packaging industry, something a little more robust that can be reused many times, and it looks really cool too. I'm excited to show the audience if you have some samples there. But yes, before we started, you uh you had uh told me what the name means. Can you explain that to the audience? Yes. Word cute is Estonian word for fibers, and as we are dealing with textile fibers, so we we thought that this uh little short word, cute, is a very good name for the company. And it sounds like cute, and I that's why we think it is easier for for people to remember. So that's the name. Excellent. I love it. I know there's uh, and if you want to, this would be a good time to to show off your awesome innovation. Tell us about it. Yeah, I can do that. So this is um a little box here, yeah. You can see, and the other color we have available is this uh brownish. And I can explain that uh we um our idea was that not to stay for too long um in a laboratory and come to the market as quickly as possible and start gathering feedback from the market about the material, the properties of the packaging, the functionality, the um look, the touch, everything, how it works. So, and that's why we started with a more controllable waste stream that is post-industrial waste. So these two materials are made from uh post-industrial textile waste that we have available here in Estonia. We have the textile industry, we are producing uh a lot of like um pillows, tubats, mattresses, bed linen, and these kinds of products. And all these have these little cutoffs, side streams coming from production, and these also end up in landfills and incinerated, there are no use for those very, very tiny side streams. And this material is uh created from that because in the packaging industry you need to control the quality, you need to achieve this uh foldability, printability, all this. So that's why we started with that waste stream. But our aim and our next uh uh development phase will take us to the more post-consumer waste. So this is and this is where um uh where we want to make a really big impact to um to be able to put your old shot socks and shirts and all this also into the packaging uh material. But as as you know, to produce something, it's it should be controlled, the formula should work. So uh we are working towards uh post-consumer waste. It looks amazing. The the brown is something I hadn't seen. I I recognized the blue from your your booth in Utrecht. What is the brown made of that that makes it that color? Is it dyed or no no no, nothing is dyed, they are all the waste streams exactly as they are coming. They are there are a mix of like white and black and grey and brownish. There are also leftovers from sportsware production. So, and when you mix those colors together, so then we get the brown mix and this like a grey mix. So sometimes we have a little uh tots of some little yellow or uh pink or blue inside, and that's why we also call it as a effect, not a defect because it's the nature of this uh waste stream. Maybe the the funny story has been that when we started the uh business three years ago or our journey, and as my co-founder and me, we have this fashion industry background, and we thought that this packaging is a perfect fit for fashion brands, but unfortunately, this hasn't been the case in the beginning. I hope this will change because to reach out to the fashion industry, I think the most asked question from me is can we change the color? So, because you know, for the fashion brands, especially when they are uh premium and luxury, their brand colors and branding is very, very important for them. And then they immediately start asking those questions. And then they ask, can we cover these with them with uh paper or coatings or something? And then we tell them that actually, what's the point? That's the main idea of this material that actually to show where it is coming from. As you have seen, it looks good and it's actually nice to touch. So very nice, yeah. Maybe it's maybe it's a little bit too early for the fashion industry, and I understand them if they uh want to have their own own colors. But the positive thing is that, for example, technology sector, where maybe the colors are not so important, and when they are happy to have their brand logo in their color, they are much more adaptive to this uh new material because it works, it does its job. So that's that's the point. Well, it's it's excellent, and you've you've proven that it looks beautiful. When I felt it in my hands, uh it felt very, very stout, very sturdy, very warm, very classy, and uh I can see these brands uh really adopting it quickly. You mentioned they're reusable, and um, I'd like to know kind of have you tested maybe how many uses you can get out of one of these boxes? Yes. Yes, we have tested. Our first client was a telecom company here in our home market in Estonia, and they have those circular services where people can trade in and buy back uh the mobile phones, and they are selling, so they have this like a switching switch programs. So they are using our poxies, they are looking like this. Uh, and uh here inside is the special um uh sleeve or insert where you can uh insert your old mobile phone and send the you see, you put the mobile inside inside. So I will show it here. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it really protects it. And uh these boxes now have been used in Estonia for uh two and a half years, and uh some of the boxes have done already 15 circles and they are still uh usable. But the average is around like 10, 12 circles, and uh now we have expanded this concept of um uh circulating the used smartphones with reusable boxes into other countries like Norway and Finland, where for example they have also done already eight circles or five circles, and the customers saying that wow, they are they are really durable and uh and working. And maybe this the I always tell the people that it's like a small thing, but actually it is very, very important. With this textile material, they look like cardboard boxes, yes, but you you can tape them, you can put either plastic or paper tapes, you can put the shipping labels over, and when you remove it, I have just my brand tape here, but when you remove it, nothing happens with the surface. So that's excellent. That's the difference because with cardboard, you know what happens when you put a lot of tapes and you remove them. They you get you break them. It weakens it every time. Right, right. Yes. Well, I think I think they're beautiful, and I think it makes a lot of sense with extended producer responsibility coming to fruition in in many states in the USA and all around the world. Are you seeing more demand for reusable boxes like yours? Yes, I think it uh it develops nicely, and uh there are gonna be a lot of help uh from this uh PPWR, the packaging and packaging waste regulation in Europe. I see that people are corporates are starting to act uh more actively. And also when you have those positive use cases, you can inspire other companies because still the reusability is a new thing. Actually, it was a very old thing when we were young, but now it's like a new thing, and we have some positive cases where, for example, we have talked with another telecom company, and he told us that yeah, I just uh had this call with you just to see your packaging, but there is no use for us. And we were talking and explaining how we are doing this in in Norway and and other things, and then suddenly this guy was silent and was thinking, actually, when I'm thinking it is possible with other devices as well, like TV setup boxes, routers, some other electronics, because they are going uh to the homes and they are coming back. There are things that we are leasing or renting out, so they you they just have to get these ideas that how actually make this work when you have these certain touch points where the the devices are moving. So we see that we can expand this concept from smartphones to rental of laptops and tablets, or even, like I said, TV setup boxes or rotors or other devices. Yes, that's that's doable. Absolutely excellent. I just had a customer ask me for a reusable laptop box, and this would be perfect material. So we'll we'll connect offline about that. I'd love to expand this to the US. Speaking of that, do you have plans to expand to other countries soon? Or yes, step by step, because yeah, like we are still in a quite uh would say early stage, started uh three years ago, and we are now operating, I don't even know exactly, like in five countries. And yes, um one day we see us definitely in in the US as well. We have the patent for the market uh for the material in Europe and US. So we can come. Yeah, but um I think it's also very much dependent um on the market readiness, how people are willing to experiment with new materials, reusability. But we see now more uh more uh interest from global companies starting from Europe, but they have also branches um in other continents as well. It's exciting to think about boxes being reusable, I think. And I think what you've gotten going here is that potential. So well done. Great job and very interested to see a little bit more technical question about the material. You mentioned they're they can be printed, and uh you showed me that in Utrecht. How are they printed? And is there a limit to the number of colors? They are actually printable in uh usual printing machines that we have in the packaging industry, like flexo printing, silkscreen printing, samples you see a lot of uh laser engraving, which looks uh very premium. But in terms of colors, all colors that are used in flexo and silkscreen uh printing are doable. The thing is that maybe some colors are not so visible because, like I said, the material is like a grey mix or a brown mix. Uh but yeah, for example, the brown material um is a little bit better for this. I don't unfortunately have the colors here, but we have tested white and black also in in in uh in a brown material, and uh it looks good and uh it's readable. That's that's the important thing, yeah. Um even I have some samples here, maybe you see there are a lot of text. Oh, that's that's impressive, very small print, and yeah, it looks very clear. Have you had clothing manufacturers reach out to you and say, hey, we want to uh provide you with our material? Yes, that's um so when when we think about who has the problems, so we we're now getting so like in the packaging world, we have those regulations in Europe coming, like this packaging and packaging waste regulation and extended producer responsibility, but also in the textile side, they have this extended producer responsibility, so they have to take care of their waste and post um consumer uh and not returned clothes and unsold clothes and all this. So, yes, we are getting brands are reaching out that can you do something with our waste? But what we have discovered is to make it really work, like business-wise, and um to make something out of it. So, what we have told them that it works only so that when you give us your waste and we recycle it and make the packaging material, you have to buy back the packaging from us. That's great. Um, because because this this actually was one of the challenges also why the textile recycling has struggled. We have seen it in our neighboring countries that um when they have set up those very powerful uh recycling facilities and they um shredding and fiberizing the textile waste, and then they have those fibers and uh nothing to do. There are no existing markets for those products. So, and then when we have this products, so we want to make um that these brands and clothing products they have to take the commitment to buy back the packaging. So that's that's the idea. And we and that's uh we are in in negotiations with some companies and some brands, uh, and we hope to reach uh to get some pilots uh next year so to to prove that this business model could work. Sounds like a smart business model. I mean, they could almost pay you to take the material. Yes, yes, because otherwise you're gonna have fines. Yeah. PPWR and EPR fines. So that's really great points. Yes. Well done. So what's next? Uh anything else you've invented that you can show us, or you have any any plans that you're excited about? Uh yeah, we are inventing all the time. Like you saw, that this brown color is kinda is uh uh new. But next, uh yeah, we want to improve the material. Like I said, that in the next phase, we want to reach uh at least um to put 30% of the post-consumer waste also inside. But the thing is that um with post-consumer waste, it is very hard to control. Control what exactly you are getting. So, you know, all from the clothes, the labels are removed, or all of this. But we are we're gonna go into the testing phase and hope to get um results. But what next also is that currently our material has uh uh certain limits in terms of uh how big we can go with the boxes. That makes sense. Yes, I don't have the biggest one here, but like like you see, like normal cardboard boxes, but we have the bigger ones as well. But the maximum weight that they are they can carry right now is around like eight, ten kilos, not more, because the material starts to bend. And this is also in in our to-do list in uh in the next um development phase, how to make the material um uh lighter and uh more and not losing the strength and uh and um the capability of uh carrying more heavy, heavy so we have a lot of things in our to-do list. But asking also that what could be also the applications for the materials because they can go beyond packaging uh as as well. So for example, we have already done small projects for for example for hotels, some small boxes for um returning keys, or they are called these hooks on uh uh oh yeah, great idea. Yeah, and um uh yes, and also we can move over small industrial packaging as well, have certain uh like um inlays or inserts or uh just some panels, some class things that need protection. Yeah, for example, I even have some one sample here, it's just it's some industrial packaging thing that they um they need to put between the some um class things because this material is softer uh than the ordinary cardboard, so it um great point gives them uh uh better protection. Yeah, paper is a mild abrasive, and this uh this material is much softer, so that's a great point for your use cases. Yeah, we'll say. Yes. And as you see, uh and I'm not even that familiar with all the packaging vocabulary. So I can I can talk about clothing and uh things, but it but it's really fascinating, and we really love uh to learn. We started from the beginning. What is primary packaging, secondary packaging? It's uh 28 years for me in the industry, and I still learn something new every day. So you've got a long way to go, and that's okay. But keep up the great work. Uh, how do people get in touch with you and and your team to buy some of this material? Yes, we have obviously our webpage, qt.io. The ending is not.com, but blue qt and io. So, and we are in LinkedIn, obviously, and uh we have a company web page, and there is my obviously account, so you can reach out. We have all the uh contacts, the mails and the telephone numbers on the webpage as well, all the co-founders and our sales team uh in Europe. So feel free to reach out. Thank you so much. It's been an honor to speak with you, and congratulations on your success with this incredible material. Thank you for having me and uh that I could introduce cute textile waste based material to the world. Thank you, Corey. Thank you.