Goosedown out, bulrush in: the plant refashioning puffer jackets

By 2026, a rewetted peatland site in Greater Manchester will be harvesting bulrushes in a trial that aims to boost UK biodiversity, cut carbon emissions and provide eco-friendly stuffing for clothes

Bulrushes grow in marshes and peatland across the UK. Photograph: Krys Bailey/Alamy

The humble bulrush does not look like the next big thing in fashion. Growing in marshes and peatland, its brown sausage-shaped heads and fluffy seeds are a common sight across the UK. Yet a project near Salford in north-west England is aiming to help transform the plant into an environmentally friendly alternative to the goosedown and synthetic fibres that line jackets, boosting the climate and the productivity of rewetted peatland in the process.

BioPuff, a new plant-based material manufactured by the startup Saltyco using reedmace – better known as bulrush – has a similar structure to feathers, providing warm, lightweight and water-resistant insulation, according to the firm.

To boost the availability of bulrushes, the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside has joined forces with a local farmer and a landowner on a five-hectare (12-acre) site in one of the UK’s first paludiculture (farming on rewetted peat) trials, with a £400,000 grant from the UK government.

If scalable, the material could line clothing at a fraction of the environmental footprint of traditional stuffing. It has already gained plaudits in the fashion industry, winning the H&M foundation Global Change Award last year. It has been used in one small collection so far, by the Italian label YOOX, and the startup is in talks with more fashion houses.

About 20 bulrush heads are needed to make enough material for one jacket, and the first rushes are expected to be harvested from the UK site in 2026…