TEXTILES.ORG
Textile waste is a massive problem throughout the world. The European Union (EU) estimates it generates 12.6 million tons of textile waste a year and that only 1% of all textiles worldwide are recycled into new products.
The situation is not any better in the U.S., which produces more than 17 million tons of textile waste per year, according to estimates made by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2018. That equates to about 104 pounds per person. About 66% of all unwanted clothes and textiles are deposited in landfills in the U.S. Less than 15% are recycled, and the rest—19%—are burned.
Even with those forces at play, there are still many challenges facing nascent recycling efforts, including how to make the sorting and recycling of textiles easier, more affordable and scalable.
Textile manufacturers and distributors are increasingly interested in making sure their discarded waste is recycled instead of ending up clogging landfills or being burned. The push is coming not just from government mandates but also from investors, consumers and others who want to reduce the damaging impact of textile waste on the environment.
EU requires sorting and collection
The European Union is taking regulatory steps to ensure that companies take responsibility for the textiles they produce. Starting Jan. 1, 2025, the EU will require companies that make textiles available on the EU market to cover the costs for their separate collection, sorting and recycling. The companies also will need to ensure separate collection of textiles for reuse, preparing for reuse and recycling.
These rules—called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)—cover textile products such as clothing and accessories, blankets, bed linens, curtains, hats, footwear, mattresses and carpets, including products that contain textile-related materials such as leather, composition leather, rubber or plastic.
The mandate is expected to spur more innovation and may prompt others to follow in the European Union’s footsteps with regulatory measures.
Recycling already wanted
Even without a legislative requirement, Steve Lister, chief financial officer of South Carolina-based Leigh Fibers, says there is a push for textile recycling. “As a general statement, neither consumers nor textile manufacturers are sitting idly by, waiting for legislation to drive sustainability,” Lister says. “There is a level of awareness and engagement that encompasses every element of the global textile supply chain, contributing to a level of collaboration that is rare, if not unheard of, to address the complexity of the challenge.”
Leigh Fibers, founded in 1922, offers mechanical recycling of textiles, which are turned into products for industries including automotive, acoustic insulation and sporting equipment. Mechanical recycling uses physical processing techniques including the shredding of textiles into smaller pieces to recycle pre- and postconsumer textiles into new recycled yarns or other formats, which then can reenter the supply chain. Leigh Fibers is a sister company to Revive Fiber, formerly Martex Fiber, a textile waste trading company founded in 1975.
Tackling the textile issue
Textile waste is continuing to pile up year after year, which complicates the problems. “We’re making about the same amount [of textile items] and we’re throwing away about the same amount every year,” says Karla Magruder, founder of Accelerating Circularity, a nonprofit focused on building textile-to-textile recycling systems at commercial scale through a collaborative, stakeholder-led approach.
She says modified collection systems need to be established. “Today, when we have clothes we don’t want anymore, we bring them to Goodwill or put them in a drop box. But there needs to be a system for collecting everything.”
Many items that could be recycled are ending up in landfills. “If an item has a stain or a hole, it’s certainly functional for recycling,” Magruder says. “At Accelerating Circularity, we don’t want anything to go to a landfill or incinerator right away. Our vision is a world where textiles are no longer wasted.” Through a Walmart Foundation grant, the organization is working with Goodwill to turn unsellable textile donations into recycling feedstock.
Achieving Accelerating Circularity’s vision is easier said than done, as Magruder herself points out. “You can’t just put [discarded textiles] on the curb because if you do, they’ll get damp and dirty and that’s not good recycling feedstock. And once it is collected, the materials will be sorted for where they fit into the textile hierarchy: Can it be reused? Does it need to be repaired, or is it good for recycling? Then you’ll need to sort it for fiber type, color, fabric and construction so you can determine what recycling system it goes into.”
Textiles also need to have trims removed because zippers, buttons, thread and other materials can’t be put into a recycling system.
Improving sorting with technology
Sorting processes today would benefit from new technologies, says Georgia Parker, innovation director for Amsterdam-based Fashion for Good, a global initiative to inspire change and to drive a collective effort to make fashion a force for good. In May the organization released its Sorting for Circularity USA report exploring opportunities in the U.S. to valorize unwanted textiles through improved collection programs, noting “fiber-to-fiber recycling has the potential to generate $1.5 billion in revenue.”
“Currently, sorting is done manually, and most textiles are blends, which complicates sorting,” Parker says. She sees hope for improved efficiency through automated sorting, which some of Fashion for Good’s collaborator companies are doing. “Automated sorting technologies such as Matoha, Refiberd and Picvisa will help improve sorting capabilities,” she says.
Matoha’s patent-pending FabriTell devices combine near infrared spectroscopy and cloud-based machine-learning algorithms to provide affordable material identification. Refiberd allows for advanced material detection via artificial intelligence-based hyperspectral imaging. Picvisa employs artificial intelligence and deep-learning algorithms to help robots make and implement decisions in automated sorting processes.
Other entities also need to have skin in the game, according to Parker, who says improving sorting capabilities “requires investments from sorting facilities.” In addition to mechanical recycling, Parker sees promise in chemical processing, which breaks down textile waste to a molecular level.
Getting needed feedstock is another issue facing recyclers. “A big focus for some chemical recycling companies is to get long-term feedstock partnerships with manufacturers or sorters for postconsumer [waste] to secure a consistent supply,” Parker says.
Magruder praises the EU for its support of textile recycling. “The European government has provided a lot of support for trials and innovation for local businesses,” she says.
“Another important aspect for recycling companies will be the geographical location of their plants,” Parker notes. “It will likely be that they set up shop in a country that also facilitates their access to postindustrial or postconsumer textile feedback.”
Parker says chemical recycling is thought toincrease the purity of the output products in comparison to mechanical recycling. She sees chemical recycling evolving and anticipates it will make recycling textiles easier.
“Today, there are over two dozen companies seriously engaged in advanced developments of textile-to-textile recycling, such as Syre, Circ, BlockTexx®, Ambercycle, IFC [Infinited Fiber Company], Renewcell—which are all part of our innovator network,” Parker says. “Some combine separation techniques to handle blended feedstock; others focus on pre-consumer waste, which can be controlled for multi-fabric impurities and are a large waste category.”
Sweden focuses on sorting
Technology is being used to improve sorting at Sweden-based Sysav at its Siptex facility, where textiles are sorted by fiber and color using near-infrared and visual spectroscopy. The textiles are illuminated and light is reflected differently depending on the material. Sensors detect and categorize the fiber type, and compressed air blows the fabric into the correct container. The plant can simultaneously sort three different flows.
The company is owned by 14 municipalities that all have a recycling center. Even with such facilities in place, Anna Vilén, communications manager at Sysav, agrees with Parker that getting enough textiles is still a problem. “We really need the volume, but we also need the aftermarkets,” she says.
Europe’s EPR requirement will increase the amount of textiles the company receives, she hopes. For now, she says stakeholders are waiting to make additional investments in textile recycling. “The municipalities won’t do any kind of big investments in any new systems before they know how EPR will work,” she says.
As complex as the task of recycling textiles is, Vilén says Sweden has set an example of how it can work through the challenges in its recycling of plastics. Similar to the EPR for textiles, Sweden requires producers of plastic packaging to recycle plastic and has set up the largest and most efficient plant for plastic recycling in Europe, according to Swedish Plastic Recycling.
The higher cost of recycling products is another challenge. “A brand may want to recycle all of their [employee] vests,” says John Peoples, president of Leigh Fibers, “but do they really want to incur the cost of accumulating all of them and have the freight expense involved of sending it to us? A lot of times, when it comes down to what it really costs to do it, people aren’t always on board. So the accumulation of postconsumer waste, gathering it and getting it to us in a format that’s useful, that’s an [ongoing] challenge.”
While much of textile recycling is focused on what can be done with a textile after it’s been produced, Peoples says emphasis also needs to be placed on how a product is made in the first place.
“It really has to start from the design side,” he says. “When you’re designing clothing, if you’ve got a garment that has three or four different types of material in it, it is going to be more difficult to process or recycle than if you have something that’s all cotton or all polyester. So sustainability will really be driven as much by the design side and by consumers pushing people to design products that are more easily recyclable and more circular in nature.”
Companies aren’t going it alone
Magruder says increasing textile recycling can’t be done in isolation. She says companies need to be “part of a collaboration, because you are not going to figure it out on your own. We’re trying to build new systems. Even the biggest companies can’t do it alone.” Accelerating Circularity has created the Alliance of Textile Chemical Recyclers working group to collaborate, provide sustainably sourced/circular materials and provide long-term price stability and consistent supply of raw materials.
While there are still obstacles to overcome, Lister believes textile recycling will be embraced. “Most every mid-sized company has a director of HSE [health, safety and the environment] with increasing emphasis on sustainability, with public companies issuing annual environmental, social and governance reports that are viewed by investors as being every bit as important as financial annual reports,” he says. “There is a healthy push-pull driving textile circularity that is generating momentum and [that] I’m confident will result in significant improvement addressing this critically important environmental challenge.”
Annemarie Mannion is a freelance writer based in Willowbrook, Ill.
SIDEBAR: British textile collection efforts support recycling
Just as it is elsewhere, what to do with unwanted clothing is a nagging problem in the U.K., where it is estimated that homes there contain 1.6 billion items of unwanted clothing that could be used, reused or recycled, according to nongovernmental organization Wrap.
Oxfam and Marks & Spencer
Giving people a better option is fueling a partnership between nonprofit Oxfam and major British multinational retailer Marks & Spencer. Unwanted clothing donated by the public in Oxfam shops or at M&S stores is resold in Oxfam shops or overseas or is recycled. Consumers can participate in a trial program in which they can go to the Oxfam website and order a prepaid postal donation bag to send in clothing that has been separated into two groups: those that are good quality and wearable and those that are unwearable but too good to throw away.
The trial is an initiative of the ACT Project, led by the U.K. Fashion and Textile Association, which is seeking to establish a new framework resulting in a U.K.-based automated sorting and preprocessing facility that will recycle clothing unsuitable for resale. The recycled clothing will be used to create new clothing in a completely circular system.
Salvation Army U.K.
In other efforts, the U.K.’s Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd. (SATCoL) is partnering with Project Plan B in Project Re:claim to recycle polyester back into feedstock and yarn on a commercial scale. The Fibersort recycling machinery was installed at its automated sorting and processing center in Kettering, England, in January. The facility sorts about 65,000 tonnes (71,650 U.S. tons) of donated textiles annually. In addition to clothing donations, SATCoL is working with companies to donate 100% polyester items.
“We have had a very successful start to this project and will be moving to commercial levels of production over the next couple of months,” said Tim Cross, CEO of Project Plan B and the Circular Textiles Foundation, in June. “We are at the stage of processing pellets and testing them for quality and suitability for future production runs … . We are working with many brands who are transitioning their manufacturing models to cater for fully recyclable garments—such as the David Luke circular [student school uniform] blazer.”
He adds, “It is clear to us that circularity in textiles is achievable and will be a profitable solution that avoids the use of virgin materials. The majority of the textiles we are receiving in have already got a yarn destination planned for them. We are therefore confident that if we link the recycling of textiles to the production of new yarns, we can grow the volume of recycled materials in a sustainable way.”
SIDEBAR: Sustainability News
Syre receives further investment
Syre, founded by Vargas Holding and H&M Group in March this year, announced $100 million in further investment by TPG Rise Climate, H&M, IMAS Foundation (tied to IKEA), Volvo Cars and others. The funding will finance the blueprint plant in North Carolina, projected to be up and running later this year. The first two polyester recycling plants potentially will be built in Vietnam and on the Iberian Peninsula to be close to established supply chains for feedstock, expertise, logistics and green energy. The next goal is to begin plant construction in 2025.
The funding allowed Syre to purchase patented recycling technology from Premirr Plastics, based in Garner, N.C., which was a previous participant in Fashion for Good’s Global Innovation Programme.
Woolen mill achieves Zero to Landfill status
AW Hainsworth, a British fabric manufacturer and woolen mill, has achieved Zero to Landfill status through recycling and waste reduction. It partnered with Reconomy, a circular waste management provider, and invested in machinery to manage on-site waste by installing energy-efficient plastic and cardboard balers. It worked with suppliers to reduce yarn packaging waste, and another supplier switched to reusable from disposable dye cones, which saved 45,000 cones over a span of two years from being sent into the waste stream.
During the past year, the textile producer has completed several projects to help reach its sustainability goals, increase operational efficiency, and reduce energy consumption and waste. A key example is using undyed yarns in partnership with some aviation customers to create sustainable seating and vertical surface fabrics. Using 100% undyed wool reduces energy, water and waste effluent in manufacturing. The company published its 2023 Sustainability Report this spring and plans to hire a head of sustainability. The textile mill was established in 1783 and is based in West Yorkshire, England.
Infrastructure bill funding second molecular recycling plant
The U.S. Department of Energy selected Eastman Chemical Company as one of 33 companies to receive industrial decarbonization funding of up to $375 million.The funds are from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act for the construction of a second U.S. molecular recycling facility, to be in Longview, Texas. The plant will prepare mixed plastic waste for processing, projecting approximately 110,000 metric tons (121,254 U.S. tons) annually, to create new materials for packaging and textiles. The company says the site also includes enough space for on-site renewable energy. Eastman also received state and local tax incentives valued at approximately $70 million.
Eastman’s first molecular recycling facility is now online in Kinsgsport, Tenn., and ramping up throughout 2024. The company also has plans to invest in another plant in France.
Groundbreaking on enzymatic recycling plant
In late April, CARBIOS held a groundbreaking ceremony for its biorecycling plant to be constructed in Longlaville, France. The plant is to be the first industrial-scale enzymatic recycling plant for PET and is expected to process 50,000 metric tons (55,116 U.S. tons) of difficult-to-recycle waste annually, including postconsumer textiles. The company equates it to “2 billion colored bottles, 2.5 billion food trays or 300 million T-shirts.”
CARBIOS is partnering with Hündgen, a German company specializing in waste management in logistics, sorting and recycling. Indorama Ventures sold CARBIOS the land. The French government and the region are supporting the venture with 54 million euros as part of the France 2030 program.