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A Fruitful Enterprise
Positive stories that caught our eye
Back in 2011, Adriana Santonocito was a design student in Milan, Italy, when she began to wonder whether a fabric could be made from citrus by-products that would otherwise be thrown away.
Santonocito comes from Sicily, a place famous for its oranges, so the idea was of particular interest to her. What if the rinds of the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of oranges used for juice – normally just a waste product – could somehow be used to make clothes?
She set about finding the answer in the laboratory, and discovered that the cellulose in orange rinds could be made into yarn, which could then be dyed and blended with other textiles.
In 2014 she founded her own company, Orange Fiber, with fellow Sicilian Enrica Arena, and they’ve begun selling their silk-like material to clothes manufacturers. Business professor Rosario Faraci says the company is a shining example of how “creativity and entrepreneurial spirit” are creating new jobs and businesses in Sicily.