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The family of recycled textiles is continually welcoming new members. Recycling fabrics scores well in terms of impact, because the process requires less energy, less resources and less chemical than the production of new textile. Turning to existing yarn and textile, moreover, means reducing the need for virgin (raw) materials like cotton, wool or synthetic yarn. This saves energy and avoids the pollution that takes place during traditional dyeing, washing and harvesting processes.

In addition, it’s always a good idea to learn more about the recyclability of fabrics and to take into account guidelines which guarantee that clothes stay in the loop at the end of their lives. You can read all about the relevant criteria by clicking your way to ‘Design for rebirth’ and ‘Recycle textiles’.

Keep in mind that avoiding waste is still the best solution, and that recycling should be the last resort.

HOW DOES RECYCLING WORK?

• Natural materials
  Recycling natural materials (like cotton and wool) mainly happens mechanically: it’s a process of stripping and shredding fabrics into smaller particles. The fibers that emerge from this process have been broken and torn, making them shorter. Using (only) these kinds of fibers would endanger the quality of the fabric; the product would not be strong enough and would disintegrate quickly. To achieve a better quality, the shorter fibers are mixed with long (new) fibers. Chemical recycling is also an option for natural materials. Cotton is dissolved into cellulose, for instance, which can be turned into viscose or lyocell. What’s interesting about chemical recycling is that it doesn’t cause deterioration and that it removes the dye from the fibers. Yet the products that are up for recycling cannot contain hard items like buttons or zippers.

  The recycling of natural materials lags behind as compared to that of synthetic materials. New natural materials are cheap, which is why they continue to dominate the market and the necessary new developments in recycling are slow to emerge. Once a method has been developed for extracting longer fibers, chances are that the quality (and with it, the demand) will increase.

• Synthetic materials
  Synthetic fabrics can be recycled both (thermo)mechanically and chemically. Polyester, in this case consisting mainly of industrial waste and post-consumer plastics (like bottles), is pulverized, melted and then spun into new fibers.
  The demand for recycled polyester is on the rise, especially in the niche markets of sports and outdoor wear, but also in the fashion industry in general. 

DIFFERENT FABRICS - DIFFERENT RECYCLING PROCESSES

COTTON

The cotton industry is a big consumer of water, pesticides and insecticides. Recycled cotton, then, helps to reduce pollution as well as the consumption of resources. Because cotton waste has already been dyed, there is no need to color it. This is a plus, as dyeing processes also involve the use of chemicals and a lot of water.

Large amounts of cotton waste can be found both in the pre-consumer and post-consumer phases. ‘Pre-consumer phase’ means that waste is created during each step of the production process: during the production of the yarn and the fabric as well as during the manufacturing of the clothes themselves, waste is created. ‘Post-consumer waste’, by contrast, refers to clothes that the consumer discards after use.

The first step in mechanically recycling cotton is sorting the waste by type and color. Next, the sorted fabrics are mechanically ripped into strips, then unraveled into fibers. The resulting fibers are shorter than new fibers, making it harder to spin them. This is why recycled cotton is often mixed with new cotton fibers to protect the quality and strength of the yarn. Sometimes no more than 30% recycled cotton finds its way into a new fabric.

POLYESTER AND PLASTIC

When it comes to environmental friendliness, polyesters are not the best of the bunch. Starting from the existing (plastic) waste heap is preferable to producing more new plastic. Opting for recycled polyester means avoiding the use of crude oil, which is an essential component in the production of new polyester.

Today, the production of recycled polyester is mainly powered by plastic bottles, production waste, discarded clothing and ocean plastic. The fabric or plastic is pulverized, melted and then pulled into yarn.

The use of recycled polyester is on the rise, and its fame along with it. While earlier on Patagonia was a rather lonely pioneer in recycling polyester from bottles, nowadays many brands are catching on. 

NYLON/POLYAMIDE/ACRYLIC

Nylon is made from petroleum, just like polyester, but it is much harder to recycle. After years of research and testing, recycled nylon fibers that can be used in clothing and that meet the quality requirements have finally been developed.

Recycled nylon is made from post-industrial fibers, yarn from the spinning process and waste from weaving. Econyl experiments with discarded industrial fishing nets.

WOOL

Wool has to meet strict color and quality requirements before it can be used to spin a new thread. Working with recycled wool is quite laborious, but it has its ecological benefits. The coloring process can be skipped completely, and excessive use of water and chemicals can be avoided.

DENIM

A pair of jeans can be recycled in various ways and the search for new ideas to extend the life of these fibers is ongoing. Nudie jeans, for instance, has made new denim from worn-out jeans that were cut into strips and milled down to a cottony pulp, which in turn served as raw material for new yarn. Because recycled yarn consists of relatively short fibers, virgin cotton was added to get a stronger fabric. With #HackyourJeans, the European Spinning Group (ESG) shows that post-consumer denim can be recycled into premium new clothes, towels, bags, and so on.

If you opt for recycled fabrics, you do well to limit yourself to certified ones. GRS (Global Recycle Standard), for instance, is a product standard for tracking and verifying the content of recycled materials. It also takes into account product criteria like the use of energy, water and chemicals, and labor conditions. RCS (Recycled Claim Standard), in turn, consists of two standards. The first, RCS Blended, guarantees that a product contains 5 to 95% recycled content, while RCS 100 applies to products that contain at least 95% recycled material (no additional environmental or social factors are taken into account).

Reusing discarded pieces of fabric to create new products has been popular for quite some time, but nowadays this process is more professionalized than ever. Reusing, redesigning or upcycling is regarded as an eco-efficient strategy, even though this approach does not tackle the real problem, namely the increase in both production and consumption. This being said, we have an enormous amount of textile and clothing waste at our disposal, which (rightly) boosts the popularity of this strategy.

TEXTILE AND CLOTHING WASTE

There are several brands that use fabric surplus from the regular fashion industry to produce their own fashionable clothing, like Studio AMA or Current Antwerp.

REUSED TEXTILE

The most obvious way to go about this, is to work with used clothing (also called post-consumer spills) making new clothes from old pieces or fabrics. Not only fabrics from the fashion industry are eligible for this. Think for instance of old fire hoses, parachutes, flags, car tires … You name it! As long as discarded textile is creatively reused and can re-enter the market as a new, upcycled product, it fits the bill. This is the case with Be the fibre products, for instance.

REUSED PRODUCTION WASTE

Designers working with pre-consumer spills go for pieces of fabric that were already labeled as waste during the design or production phase (before entering the consumer’s closet that is). Pattern cutting and fabric production often generate these kinds of surpluses.

ORGANIC WASTE

Another type of waste that is often overlooked for these purposes, is organic waste. Turning food scraps into fashion? Yes we can!

QMILK is a beautiful example that has an exceptional production process in which milk proteins are turned into textile fibers. The protein is extracted from milk that is no longer suitable for consumption. In Germany alone, 1.9 million tons of milk are thrown away each year, while still containing valuable substances. QMILK's proteins-turned-fibers can be used for clothing, interior design, industrial applications and medical equipment.

Other examples are Piñatex, which is made from the fibers of pineapple leaves, or S.Café, a fabric made from coffee; and Orange Fiber, made from citrus fruits
These developments are definitely worth keeping an eye out for!

It’s amazing how much inspiration can be gained from simply looking at nature. After all, nature has been through millions of years of innovation and has come up with very clever solutions to problems that you, too, may be facing. The scientific term for this principle is biomimicry, which ccan be translated as imitating nature.

In addition, it’s interesting to find out which finishings are environmentally friendly and to look for alternatives to man-made products in order to raise the odds of a natural recycling process (also called cradle to cradle).

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE: CRADLE TO CRADLE

Cradle to cradle is one of the oldest and one of the hardest principles of the circular economy. The basic idea is that everything has its place in nature: something springs to life, consisting of natural resources, and at the end it slowly disappears back into the earth. This is the most advanced closed-loop system ever. As is apparent from the clothing industry, for man-made products this is next to impossible to attain. However, you can still try to imitate the principle.

Cradle to cradle (C2C) was introduced at the beginning of the 21st century by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. They considered a garment an eco-friendly product, because it is (for the most part) made of natural materials. This entails the possibility to return it to nature, or to make it degradable. Click through to ‘Biodegrade organic textile’ to find out all about biodegradable fabrics.

In reality, however, clothes do not consist of only one fabric; they are often made from a blend of fabrics (like polyesters) or are heavily coated or dyed, which impedes biodegradation. The prerequisite for a successful C2C process is a radical change in the way our products are made.

We’ll look into some finishings that could be interesting alternatives to more traditional methods, facilitating degradation and thus cutting nature some slack.

NATURAL DYES

These days we are confronted with a huge offer of synthetic dyes. They have driven natural dyes off the market because they come in more colors and don’t easily wash off over time.
Yet plants could become the go-to option when preparing dyes. This actually used to be the case up until 1850.

It’s not always immediately clear which color a certain plant will yield. It makes sense to use red beetroot to dye a garment red, but it takes a little more effort to see how an onion can be turned into a brown paste.

Below you’ll find an overview of colors that might be fun to experiment with. The downside: natural dyes often require treatments that are harmful to the environment. So there’s definitely room for innovation here!

(Source: Natuurlijk Verven - Roos Soetekouw)

Natrual Textile dyes

COATINGS

Coating is a man-made finishing process that impedes recycling. A coating is a protective layer: a tissue or non-woven, film or sheet (PVC, PU, silicon or something else) that is put on top of a carrier material (nylon, polypropylene, polyamide, cotton, wool) to improve the latter’s qualities and characteristics. Here as well it’s worthwhile to look for an environmentally friendly alternative.
(Source: Sioen)

BIOMIMICRY: IN SEARCH OF SMART SOLUTIONS

You can often turn to nature to find solutions to specific problems. Some examples:

CLEANING

Any fluids dropped onto a lotus leaf simply glide off its surface, cleaning the plant as they go. This effect called ‘superhydrophobicity’ or ‘the lotus effect’ is often applied to clothes that benefit from self-cleaning qualities, like raincoats or workwear.

ANTI-ALLERGENS

Chitosan can be found in crab shells and has natural antibacterial properties. Researchers are currently looking into the possibilities for fire and rescue gear, as well as children’s nightwear.

SOME MORE EXAMPLES

You probably know that the principle of Velcro straps was modeled after the burrs of a plant, or you may have heard about Michael Phelps’ ‘shark suit’. This swimsuit so closely resembles the texture of a shark’s skin that other swimmers thought this gave him an unfair advantage.

In short, there are plenty of examples. 

To conclude, we’d like to refer you to AskNature for more information and inspiration.

By now you know that the possibility of giving your garment a second life depends largely on the choice of resources.

However, there’s more to clothes than just pieces of virgin cotton: a lot is added to them before they’re done. These small additions that you may not immediately think of can spoil your good intentions to recycle.

The key to recycling actually lies in the sorting process, so it's vital that the machines have as little trouble recognizing the fabric as possible. In other words: what your product is made of should be as obvious as possible. Keep this in mind during the finishing process, or when selecting haberdasheries.  

A few pointers:

• If possible, limit yourself to only one type of fiber per garment; avoid mixing materials. After all, mono-materials are much easier to recycle.
• Make sure your type of fiber is easily recognizable from the surface. Using a coating (especially laminates) can really complicate the sorting process.
• Your weaving technique also has its matters: wovens in which one fiber hides or contains another can lead to incorrect sorting results.
• Metal spells trouble, so you’d want to avoid that. Metal detectors filter it out, because it can seriously damage the recycling machines but it’s even better to steer clear from metal parts altogether.
• Zippers, buttons and labels should be easy to remove. In ideal world you’d leave them out altogether.
• Make sure your tags and labels are made from the same material as your garment.
• Choose seams you can easily remove. When you use thread, don’t go for polyester on a cotton garment.
• Premium fabrics, finally, allow for higher-quality recycled fabrics.