NEW YORK (AP) — At her kitchen stove, fashion designer Caroline Zimbalist looks like an alchemist at work as she stirs a pot full of corn starch and a thickener made from seaweed. The peppermint-scented mixture glitters as she carefully pours it into silicone molds of hearts and leaves.

When the material hardens, Zimbalist will stitch it into unique, made-to-order dresses that she sells on her website. She hopes her designs, which have been worn by celebrities including Chappell Roan, will put a spotlight on materials that aren’t sourced from planet-polluting fossil fuels, such as oil.

“It’s almost like a vessel to show the world,” she said.

Other small-scale designers are testing out tapioca, gelatin and other kitchen-shelf ingredients. Meanwhile, big names such as Adidas and Hermes have experimented with mushroom leather, while the Lycra brand is incorporating a new largely corn-based material into stretch fabric. Some experts are skeptical that these textiles — commonly referred to as biomaterials — will go mainstream, but designers such as Zimbalist hope their experiments will set an example for larger brands to follow.

Over 60% of clothing comes from petroleum-based synthetics like polyester, according to Textile Exchange, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable fashion. Manufacturing those materials creates emissions. Synthetic garments can also shed microplastics during washing. And as fast-fashion brands pump out new clothes for customers who expect new designs every few weeks, many garments end up in landfills.

Zimbalist’s designs gained attention in 2024 when Roan wore one on “The Tonight Show.” The New York-based designer has since dressed stars such as comedian Atsuko Okatsuka and actors Anna Lore and Reneé Rapp. She takes commissions for custom clothing pieces, which cost between $150 and $1,200, via her website, which notes her “unique recipe of biodegradable and natural materials.”

As to whether her approach could be reproduced at a larger scale, Zimbalist says her materials could most practically be used to replace plastic hardware such as buttons and zippers. She acknowledges they can be sticky if not dried correctly, stinky if not treated and melty if exposed to extreme heat.

“Even incorporating it in small ways to start would be really strong,” she said.

Why biomaterials are hard to find

Fossil-fuel derived fabrics are ubiquitous because they’re cheap and made from plentiful raw materials, said Dale Rogers, an Arizona State University professor who studies supply chains.

Many clothes are also made of materials that come from plants or animals such as cotton, silk, wool and cashmere. But some have environmental impacts. Cotton uses a lot of water. Sheep and goats burp out methane.

Some biomaterials have gotten closer to widespread use. Mycelium leather, made from mushrooms, has been used to create luxury shoes, accessories and handbags by brands such as Stella McCartney, Lululemon, Adidas and Hermes.

Still, Rogers said he’s not convinced there’s enough demand for alternative materials to overcome companies’ aversion to the higher costs of producing them at a large scale.

“Honestly, in the end, cost drives almost all decisions,” he said.

Wrinkles in aiming for sustainability

Getting larger companies to use alternative materials depends on whether they will pay more for a fabric that matches their values, said Jon Veldhouse, the CEO of Qore LLC.

His company makes a product called Qira that replaces about 70% of the fossil-derived components of elastic synthetic fabrics with a corn-based material. The Lycra Company, which sells its stretchy material to major brands, initially expects to incorporate Qira in around 25 percent of its Spandex business, said Lycra chief brand and innovation officer Steve Stewart. But that option will be more expensive, and they haven’t yet announced any takers.

It can also be hard to measure the sustainability of farming practices that go into producing raw materials for new fabrics. Cargill is Qore’s partner and corn supplier, and it gets its grain from farmers in the vicinity of their processing plant. Veldhouse said many already plant cover crops or reduce tilling to lower environmental impact, but he couldn’t provide data on how many use those approaches.

Sarah Needham, a senior director at Textile Exchange, said it’s great to see a large organization such as Lycra making its production systems more sustainable. But she also stressed the industry needs to reduce its overreliance on virgin materials, perhaps considering agricultural waste as a source of fabric.

The role of experimental designers

Needham said experimental designers are often the ones coming up with those alternatives to virgin materials and building appetite for new approaches.

But small designers might not have the resources to test the biodegradability of their materials, which often do involve processing, even if it’s by hand, said Ramani Narayan, an engineering professor at Michigan State University.

“If I take something — like seaweed or whatever it is — and I apply a process to it, then I can no longer call it natural,” he said.

Zimbalist, the New York designer, acknowledges that her materials aren’t ready to replace conventional fabrics and that her work is more of “a piece that leads to larger conversations.”

Rogers, of Arizona State, thinks the fashion industry is a long way from meaningful change, but that “it’s incredibly valuable” for artists and specialty manufacturers to try new materials.

“What they’re doing is likely to have long-term benefit, maybe even after their lifetimes,” he added.

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Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social.

Follow Kiki Sideris on X @KikiSideris.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

PHOENIX (AP) — Most American teenagers say it is important to them to graduate from college, with girls especially describing it as a key step for accomplishing their life goals, according to a new poll.

Teenagers also generally are more upbeat than adults on college despite concerns about tuition costs, soaring student loan debt and the politicization of many issues in higher education.

Overall, about 6 in 10 teens say it’s “extremely” or “very” important to them to graduate from college, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted this spring among teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. That compares with about 4 in 10 adults who said the same in a UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll from 2022.

The survey also found that many teens think it will be harder for them to achieve major life milestones — like owning a home, raising a family or reaching a good standard of living — than it was for their parents.

For Ry-n Uyeda, 17, the biggest concern about college is the prospect of being away from her home in Waianae, Hawaii. Uyeda is already taking college-level courses in high school and hopes to play softball at a university on the West Coast.

Uyeda said she wants to develop time management skills and endurance to handle the pressures of being a student-athlete. But she hopes the college experience does not change who she is.

“I want to remember where I came from and the values that I’ve learned from here,” said Uyeda, who attends Waianae High School. “Going to a new place with new people in a new environment, I just want to still be myself.”

Far more girls than boys see value in college

Seven in 10 teenage girls in the survey said it was at least “very” important to them to graduate from college, compared with 54% of teenage boys.

The disparity reflects a growing gender gap in college degree completion. In 1995, young men and women were equally likely to hold a bachelor’s degree. Since then, a gap has emerged, with 47% of U.S. women ages 25-34 completing a bachelor’s degree compared with 37% of men, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data.

Teens raised in households with higher incomes and parents who went to college themselves also are more likely to view higher education as important.

Jalena Crawford, a 16-year-old high school junior, said she hopes to attend Grand Canyon University or Arizona State University to become a professional American Sign Language interpreter. She said her plans have been encouraged by relatives with college degrees and it would be “weird” not to consider higher education.

“I didn’t really start thinking about college until I started liking ASL. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do,” Crawford said.

Most teens see a college education as a vital step for their future career prospects, although they see other benefits as well.

About 7 in 10 teenagers said completing college is “extremely” or “very” important for getting good jobs, and about 6 in 10 teenagers say a degree is valuable in learning necessary life skills. About half of teens see college as key for either becoming a more informed member of society or forming their personal identity, according to the survey.

Teens think life milestones will be harder for them to achieve

Teenagers have many of the same life goals as adults, such as owning a home and raising a family, the poll found. About 8 in 10 teenagers value being able to pursue what they enjoy, having a good standard of living and having a successful career.

But few teenagers believe those goals have gotten easier to achieve for their generation compared with their parents.

About 7 in 10 teenagers believe owning a home has become harder to achieve for them compared with their parents, according to the poll. Just over half of teenagers say it’s become more challenging for their generation to raise a family. About half say that about having a good standard of living, having a successful career or traveling the world. Fewer, about 4 in 10, say it’s grown harder to graduate from college or be able to pursue what they enjoy.

Evarist Bego, 22, graduated earlier this year from the University of Southern California with a joint degree in business and film. He said he recalls wanting to go to college and then work his way up in his chosen industry but “that’s just not how it works anymore.”

It’s harder than he anticipated to find a job, which he said may owe partly to the creative industry he chose. He sees mostly temporary positions, like internships or fellowships.

“So many jobs that I see are entry-level, but then they require three-plus years of experience. I have interned in school, I had some experience, but it’s not enough,” he said.

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Sanders reported from Washington.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,060 teens ages 13-17 was conducted April 30-May 14, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel Teen Panel, which is designed to be representative of teenagers in the U.S., and interviews from opt-in online panels. The margin of sampling error for teens overall is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

PANNONHALMA, Hungary (AP) — Tens of thousands of centuries-old books are being pulled from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary in an effort to save them from a beetle infestation that could wipe out centuries of history.

The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary’s oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Restoration workers are removing about 100,000 handbound books from their shelves and carefully placing them in crates, the start of a disinfection process that aims to kill the tiny beetles burrowed into them.

The drugstore beetle, also known as the bread beetle, is often found among dried foodstuffs like grains, flour and spices. But they also are attracted to the gelatin and starch-based adhesives found in books.

They have been found in a section of the library housing around a quarter of the abbey’s 400,000 volumes.

“This is an advanced insect infestation which has been detected in several parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time,” said Zsófia Edit Hajdu, the chief restorer on the project. “We’ve never encountered such a degree of infection before.”

Abbey houses historical treasures

The beetle invasion was first detected during a routine library cleaning. Employees noticed unusual layers of dust on the shelves and then saw that holes had been burrowed into some of the book spines. Upon opening the volumes, burrow holes could be seen in the paper where the beetles chewed through.

The abbey at Pannonhalma was founded in 996, four years before the establishment of the Hungarian Kingdom. Sitting upon a tall hill in northwestern Hungary, the abbey houses the country’s oldest collection of books, as well as many of its earliest and most important written records.

For over 1,000 years, the abbey has been among the most prominent religious and cultural sites in Hungary and all of Central Europe, surviving centuries of wars and foreign incursions such as the Ottoman invasion and occupation of Hungary in the 16th century.

Ilona Ásványi, director of the Pannonhalma Archabbey library, said she is “humbled” by the historical and cultural treasures the collection holds whenever she enters.

“It is dizzying to think that there was a library here a thousand years ago, and that we are the keepers of the first book catalogue in Hungary,” she said.

Among the library’s most outstanding works are 19 codices, including a complete Bible from the 13th century. It also houses several hundred manuscripts predating the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century and tens of thousands of books from the 16th century.

While the oldest and rarest prints and books are stored separately and have not been infected, Ásványi said any damage to the collection represents a blow to cultural, historical and religious heritage.

“When I see a book chewed up by a beetle or infected in any other way, I feel that no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost,” she said.

Books will spend weeks in an oxygen-free environment

To kill the beetles, the crates of books are being placed into tall, hermetically sealed plastic sacks from which all oxygen is removed. After six weeks in the pure nitrogen environment, the abbey hopes all the beetles will be destroyed.

Before being reshelved, each book will be individually inspected and vacuumed. Any book damaged by the pests will be set aside for later restoration work.

Climate change may have contributed

The abbey, which hopes to reopen the library at the beginning of next year, believes the effects of climate change played a role in spurring the beetle infestation as average temperatures rise rapidly in Hungary.

Hajdu, the chief restorer, said higher temperatures have allowed the beetles to undergo several more development cycles annually than they could in cooler weather.

“Higher temperatures are favorable for the life of insects,” she said. “So far we’ve mostly dealt with mold damage in both depositories and in open collections. But now I think more and more insect infestations will appear due to global warming.”

The library’s director said life in a Benedictine abbey is governed by a set of rules in use for nearly 15 centuries, a code that obliges them to do everything possible to save its vast collection.

“It says in the Rule of Saint Benedict that all the property of the monastery should be considered as of the same value as the sacred vessel of the altar,” Ásványi said. “I feel the responsibility of what this preservation and conservation really means.”