With 84% of clothing destined for the landfill, programs like our new Cotopaxi Más Vida are critical to reducing waste and making circularity a reality.

To get pre-loved gear and apparel ready for resale, we partner with Tersus Solutions. Established in Denver in 2009, Tersus helps us sort, clean, repair, evaluate, and prep products for resale. And if an item is in poor condition at the end of its lifecycle, they recycle it.
 

When it comes to sustainability, Tersus has racked up some serious accomplishments, including:

• 1.5 million pounds of clothes kept out of landfills
• 428 tons of carbon emissions saved
• 7,794,974 gallons of water saved

That last stat (water saved) is made possible by some wildly innovative gear-washing technology that—wait for it—requires zero water. So what do these washing machines use instead of H2O? Recycled liquid CO2 (LCO2).

Not only does this closed-loop cleaning system wash used gear and apparel without water, but it also requires minimal electricity, captures microfibers, and is far more effective than conventional washing. So effective, in fact, that this technology is now being used as the best available solution for cleaning and decontaminating firefighter gear.

We wanted to find out more about how these washing machines of the future work, so we stopped by Tersus in Denver and chatted with Luke Fowler, Tersus Director of Partnerships and Repairs.

Cotopaxi: How did Tersus go about developing its washing technology?

Luke: Before starting Tersus Solutions, our founder Steve Madsen was using existing liquid CO2 washing machines in his dry cleaning business. Unsatisfied with their performance, he modified the machines to improve the process and offered the improvements to the manufacturers, who weren’t interested.

Undeterred, Steve founded Tersus Solutions with the sole mission of making the best LCO2 washing machines on the market. We still manufacture these machines ourselves and after seven generations of development, we are still innovating and making improvements.

Cotopaxi: How did Steve evolve and improve LCO2 washing technology? 

Luke: We hold unique patents that set our machines apart, and we are the leaders in textile applications for liquid CO2. In fact, we operate the largest waterless cleaner in the world.

Cotopaxi: Where do you source your CO2? 

Luke: All our CO2 is produced by an ethanol fuel plant here in Colorado, so it is both a local and recycled product. All of our CO2 is beverage grade, so it's clean and safe to work with.

Cotopaxi: Tell us about liquid CO2. Does it look, smell, and feel like water? 

Luke: Like water, liquid CO2 is colorless and odorless, but the main advantage is that it’s about 20 times less viscous than water. If you imagine water splashing off a garment and taking a moment to soak in, liquid CO2 would go right through it. Most detergents you use at home are designed to lower the surface tension of water so it will get into the fibers of your clothes better, but we don’t need to add any cleaning chemicals to most of our loads since liquid CO2 has this feature naturally. 
 

Cotopaxi: How long does a wash cycle take? 

Luke: Our typical wash cycle takes about 45 minutes, and the garments come out dry and ready to process.

Cotopaxi: Does the same machine also dry the clothes? How does the drying process work?

Luke: We drain out the vast majority of CO2 from each load to filter and reuse. The small amount left in the clothes cannot stay liquid in normal conditions so it almost instantly turns into a gas. It can look a bit like a fog machine for a few moments when the clothes first come out.

Cotopaxi: What temp are the clothes when they come out of the washers? 

Luke: We can adjust the operating temperature of the machine depending on what we are washing, but clothing often comes out slightly cool to the touch. By not heating up the garments, we avoid a lot of wear and tear that normally happens in a traditional hot water wash.

Cotopaxi: How do you see Tersus evolving this technology in the future? 

Luke: A lot of our development goes into making the machines more user-friendly and more customizable for washing different types of products. On any given day, we might be washing fine silks or leather boots, so fine tuning each load is important. We are also working on uses outside of cleaning, such as DWR application and dyeing. It also has a lot of uses in processing raw natural fibers prior to spinning into yarn.

Cotopaxi: Do you see this technology becoming more prevalent and used across more industries?

Luke: It is already used in some other industries you wouldn’t think of, such as extracting essential oils from botanical plants and for recycling post-consumer carbon fiber material.
 

Cotopaxi: Is there a world in which this technology could be adapted at the household scale? 

Luke: It would be pretty difficult, but we’ve had a few big names reach out to explore it. The main cleaning chamber needs to withstand immense pressure, which makes it expensive, and since CO2 isn’t available from a utility line like water or natural gas, you would need a large storage tank for the CO2 as well. We might see it in laundromats some day, but one in your home is a long way off.

Cotopaxi: Any other fun facts to share about the Tersus washing tech?

Luke: It's great at removing scents! My wife can’t stand artificial scents from fabric softeners or detergents, so any time we buy something secondhand with a strong smell, she makes me take it to work and give it a wash. 
 

Want to see how squeaky clean our pre-loved gear is, thanks to Tersus? Check out our resale inventory, or trade in your own used Cotopaxi products via Cotopaxi Más Vida.

Photos by Bryce Bozovich