a The Di culties of Recycling Clothes by amirsaab | Jul 21, 2020 | Amir Saab, Fashion, Textiles
Many of us have cleaned out our closets with the purpose of donating clothing that either no longer ts, is out of fashion, or was never worn. We take comfort in knowing that we are donating clothes instead of dumping them in a land ll, but the truth is that we are simply passing around the same clothing through the system, with no actual bene t, aside from the comfort it provides fellow human beings. From Mother Earth’s perspective, the components of today’s clothing are nearly impossible to recycle responsibly and are destined for the land ll anyway. Because of this, there needs to be a complete overhaul of the way we see the circle of life when it comes to textiles. Sustainability needs to be the focus, just like in so many other industries. This means having to rethink the basic materials that go into textile production in order to either turn old clothing into new or downcycle to usable bers. Currently, existing clothing is manufactured using a combination of plastics, metals, handmade bers, and natural yarn. The process of separating various pieces of clothing for further breakdown is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process that must be done manually by a skilled workforce. There are machines that can be used after the sorting phase to continue on to the next steps. These typically involve either chemical or mechanical recycling. Fabric blended clothing is too complex to be reformed into another
article of clothing. Instead, it gets mechanically recycled by shredding and pulling the bers into short strands to be downcycled to materials such as carpeting or thermal insulation. As we all strive to seek greener ways of living, researchers and scientists are trying to nd bene cial and e ective recycling methods for existing cotton and cotton/polyester blended fabrics. There is an abundance of retailers who have embraced the sustainable fashion initiative through the use of organic cotton, and chemical engineers in Hong Kong have developed a technique of feeding cotton/poly fabric to fungi, breaking down the fabric enzymes of the cotton into glucose syrup, and leaving the polyester bers available to reuse. One of the reasons this is an exciting breakthrough is the abundance of cotton/poly blends that are manufactured and worn every day, from t-shirts to jeans.
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