Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF)

Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF) is a short-length (staple) regenerated cellulose fibre, cut to lengths suitable for blending with cotton, wool or polyester in spun yarns. Like viscose filament yarn and rayon, it is made by the viscose process from wood pulp. Its wastewater generation benchmark is 150 m³ per tonne of product, the same as viscose rayon and well below filament yarn's 500.

VSF production shares the viscose family's chemistry — caustic soda, carbon disulphide and sulphuric acid — and its effluent carries sulphate, zinc, sulphide and organic load. India is a significant VSF producer, and the fibre is a major input to the textile industry's blended-fabric segment.

For recyclers, VSF is relevant as part of the regenerated-cellulose and textile material group, completing the trio of named viscose sub-categories (filament yarn, rayon, staple fibre) in the wastewater generation benchmarks. It connects to cellulose, textile-waste recycling and fibre recovery as a material class rather than as a recycling process in itself.

The practical relevance is contextual: VSF illustrates, alongside its viscose relatives, the water and chemical intensity of virgin regenerated-cellulose fibre production. This reinforces the environmental case for textile and cellulosic-fibre recycling — recovered fibres displace virgin VSF and its heavy footprint. For a recycler in the textile or fibre space, VSF is a major fibre type to recognise; for most recyclers it is simply one of the water-intensive industries named in the wastewater generation standards, useful to know when reading those benchmarks.