End of life

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. There are several brands that use fabric surplus from the regular fashion industry to produce their own fashionable clothing.

UPCYCLE CLOTHING

The most obvious way in which to go about this, is to work with used clothing (also called ‘post-consumer spills’). You can use discarded textile to create a new, upcycled product, making new clothes from old pieces or fabrics. This closed-loop system often requires intermediaries such as thrift shops or other organizations that collect clothes.

TOP-atelier, a 2019-2021 research project that was funded by Vlaanderen Circulair, provides tips and tricks to designers who want to upcycle textile, mentioning the challenges and lessons learned, as well as giving examples and listing interesting contacts.

REUSE PRODUCTION WASTE

Rather than focusing on the end of a product’s life, you can also intervene much earlier. As a designer, you can work with pre-consumer spills or pieces of fabric that were already labeled as waste during the design or production process (before entering the consumer’s closet, that is). Pattern cutting or fabric production often generate these kinds of surpluses, yet a lot of brands are also sitting on a pile of leftover fabrics. There are organizations that resell them in Belgium.

Read more about this strategy in the 'Resources' section.

The family of recycled textiles is continually welcoming new members. Turning to existing yarn and textile means reducing the need to make fabrics from 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.

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’. Check out the recycling possibilities for each fabric under ‘Resources’, especially the strategy ‘Choose recycled or recyclable fabrics’.

Keep in mind that avoiding waste, for instance by going for long life and durability, is still the best solution and that recycling should be your 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 fabrics

Synthetic fabrics can be recycled both (thermo)mechanically and chemically. Polyester, for instance, 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.

Explore your options and give organizations like RESYNTEX and Retex a follow. Looking for a partner to process your textile waste? Make sure to check this list.

PURITY IS KEY

Sorting and recycling is of course easiest when clothes are made of one and the same material. Unfortunately, most pieces consist of a blend of different materials, which is bad news all the way around. This means the very first step is an (expensive) sorting process, pushing prices for recycled textile up way too high to compete with virgin material.

The Radio Frequency Identification Tag or RFID-tag might be a possible solution, according to Valvan. Such a tag could contain all the necessary information to facilitate the sorting process.

In addition, several organizations, like Worn Again, believe in the possibility of chemically recycling fabrics that contain at least 80% of the same material. They hope to accomplish this by 2018.

When circular strategies are ranked by impact, ‘refuse’, ‘reduce’, ‘reuse’, ‘repair’ and ‘refurbish’ all come before ‘recycle’ (Vlaanderen Circulair, 2025). Of course, that doesn’t mean recycling isn’t valuable.

H&M, PUMA, The North Face, … they know that collection systems work. These retailers proudly put take-back boxes in their stores so customers can drop off old clothes in exchange for a discount on their next purchase.

The boxes are collected, centralized and sorted, often with the help of professional sorting companies. The Swiss textile recycling company I:CO is perhaps the most well-known. The sorters separate clothes that are still wearable from those that aren’t. The first group is sold as second-hand clothing, with profits going to charity. Items that can no longer be worn are recycled (at the moment mainly into cleaning cloths and material for the automotive industry) or burned.

Is your fashion company looking to give clothes a second life through a take-back or resale program? Then the Circle Scan is a valuable resource. This guide brings together insights from the research and experiments carried out by the INFINITEX Living Lab.
 

IMPORTANT DECISIONS

Generally speaking, the flow for take-back and resale looks like this, according to the Circle Scan:

Exactly how you organize your process depends, among other things, on the volumes you’re targeting, your capacity, … but also, for example, on customer expectations. The three most important questions you need to ask yourself to identify the best process for your situation are:

1. Will you handle everything yourself, or will you work with a logistics partner? (In “Getting started”, we outline the pros and cons of both approaches.)
Of all the INFINITEX partners with their own logistics facilities, CWS covers the most services: from transport, sorting, tagging, cleaning and repair to listing online, storage and inventory management, packaging and shipping. Reloved, in turn, can help with transport and cleaning, repair and listing items online. They’re also testing storage and inventory management, as well as packaging and shipping services. CiLAB focuses on repair, and Alternatief on tagging and cleaning.

2. Will you only accept ready-to-wear items, or also garments that need to be cleaned and/or repaired first?

3. Will you sell online, in physical stores, or both? (See “Sales” for an overview of the pros and cons.)

ANALYZING RETURN STREAMS

Before investing in a take-back or resale program, it’s smart to run a small-scale test first. This helps you understand which items customers return and what condition they’re in. Based on those insights, you can determine which products are suitable for resale, which can be recycled, and which have to be discarded. It can also help identify recurring defects or quality issues.
Offering customers an incentive, such as loyalty points or a voucher, can improve the quality of the items they return. Pair this with some form of social control, for example by putting a collection box near the register or having store staff inspect items individually. Communication matters too: focus on reuse rather than recycling.
Service providers such as Reloved, CWS or Okret can help you analyze your return streams. This way, you can quickly determine whether it’s worth setting up a take-back system, what repair capacity you need and which channels are best for selling your products.

DIGITIZATION

Collecting, sorting, cleaning, repairing and reselling clothing is a fairly complex process. That’s why it’s worth exploring how digital tools and technology can help, for example by improving tracking and communication, supporting internal coordination or making collaborations with partners and service providers easier. The insights from the INFINITEX Living Lab are valuable here, especially the publication “From digital to circular” (“Digitaal naar circulair”, in Dutch).
As you can see in their overview (Under the title Important Descisions) you can integrate software or technology into nearly every step of your take-back process:

Both small and larger brands can benefit from collaborating on digitization. By relying on existing expertise and available tools, you can start small and scale gradually, without having to invest in complex logistics or digital systems right away. Several digital service providers were involved in the INFINITEX Living Lab. They can help you take your first steps toward circularity or optimize your existing processes.

UNDO and Okret support customer-facing operations, including online stores, return portals, ERP-based inventory management and ERP integrations (with ERP referring to Enterprise Resource Planning: a system for tracking product inventory and availability). They also offer software for product management (such as supply chain mapping, product passport generation and smart tag creation and integration) as well as tools for return-related logistics, like warehouse and process management. Time2Trace focuses on product passports and smart tags, similar to Quifactum. Quifactum also provides ERP integrations, data capture and process management tools.

Finally, if you’re looking for an integrated Belgian solution for your circular business model, you can turn to CWS, UNDO or Okret. These companies already offer or are developing combined digital, logistical and commercial support services. The publication “From digital to circular” (“Digitaal naar circulair”, in Dutch) also lists a few international digital partners offering similar solutions.
 

The user is usually the one to decide whether or not to reuse clothing. So what about you? What do you do with clothes you no longer like? Do you give them away, sell them online, donate them to charity? Or do you try to find new owners for them at swapping events?

Be sure to check out our ‘Consumption’ section for tips and tricks.

Several retailers and designers are also launching initiatives for reuse. Filippa K is one of them, encouraging customers to hand in their clothes. Some of the collected clothes are subsequently sold in their own second-hand store, where the brand can supervise the process.

Last but not least: look into the possibilities for last season’s items or overstocks. Who knows, perhaps there are initiatives in your neighbourhood that will give your clothes a new life, such as clothing libraries.