Celebrating innovation in the textile recycling space
It’s no secret that the past few months have been really tough for the retail sector. Many businesses have found the economic and consumer landscape really challenging, and with the present uncertainty due to the COVID-19 virus, it is hard some days to find the good news in the retail space.
I want to try and bring you some inspiration in these challenging times.
I have spent the past few months, researching some interesting and positive innovations in the area of textile recycling. I do this because I am constantly curious as to what others are doing in this really important space and because it shows me that there is always a new way to try and solve an old problem.
There is so much going on it is mind blowing. Some of the ideas are already considered ‘mature’ and are moving now into industrial and pilot scale with funding; some are still at the pre-pilot innovation scale, and may move to funding and finally some are still research in labs but show the ‘art of the possible’ for the future.
There are several big themes that these innovations are trying to deal with and find solutions for and these include:
· Volume: the solutions have to be at scale to actually solve the problem;
· Complexity: the solutions need to deal with both sortation and separation of blends;
· Legislation: countries are starting to ban or reduce traditional waste streams; and
· Customer attitudes: the consumers want simple solutions to complex problems.
Looking at the volume issue, companies such as Infinited Fibre, who are a cellulosic/cotton recycler based out of Finland, are now developing a 500 tonne per year industrial plant to use its ‘carbomate’ chemical separation process to produce it ‘Infinited Fibre’, which is similar to a viscose or a lyocell. This was recently previewed at Premier Vision in Paris. This is different to traditional wet spinning, in that the business claims it uses less damaging chemicals than the old methodology.
Another Finnish business, Spinova, is currently developing its cellulosic wet spinning process and claims to use no damaging chemicals at all. It is also looking to expand this process into what it describes as a ‘mega-trend’ of using agricultural waste, e.g. wheat straw, as the basis for fibres rather than wood pulp. This theme has emerged several times around the world.
The issue of complexity comes next. As we know many garments in the textile world are blends, often polyester and something else. This has two additional challenges; firstly, it needs sorting and it then needs chemically treating to break the blends into their component parts. For many years this remained on the ‘too hard’ pile but recently several innovative businesses around the world have cracked this and are moving to commercial scale. These include Tyton Biosciences in the US; BlockTexx, in Australia and Worn Again in the UK. I will return to these businesses in a future article.
One of the key issues that these chemical recyclers need solving, is the ability to sort large amounts of pre and post-consumer waste into fibre types. The traditional textile sortation model was based on criteria such as garment type and garment quality, e.g. was it a saleable pair of men’s trousers, if so, we can sell it or export it, if it wasn’t it went to landfill. Chemical recyclers need to know what it is made of, which needed new technology.
Organisations such as the Fibersort Consortium based in the Netherlands are building solutions for this issue. They are building a technology that can accurately sort up to 900kgs of textiles per hour. As their website says,
“The Fibersort is a technology that automatically sorts large volumes of mixed post-consumer textiles by material composition. This allows them to be recycled into new, high quality textiles. Once sorted, these materials become reliable, consistent inputs for high-value textile-to-textile recyclers.”.
Finally, I have had the pleasure of recently being involved with the Fashion For Good, South Asia accelerator program. Here we have been introduced to some amazing technology companies bringing their ideas regarding textile recycling to life. I cannot list them all, but some notable highlights include:
AltMat: who uses a mixture of mechanical, chemical and enzymatic process to produce industrial fit fibre and yarn made of agri-waste such as hemp and banana waste sourced directly from farmers and hemp producers. This was called out by Spinova.
Descatuk: who has developed a process of fibre extraction and yarn creation from grass to produce a fabric that has a similar look to linen but a lighter touch. Grown in the highlands of India, the wild grass needs neither water nor pesticides.
JSP Enviro: who treat common effluents with Microbial fuel cells technology. The technology treats effluent water that can be reused, simultaneously producing energy thereby reducing the need for external energy, making it a self-sustainable waste-water treatment.
Every one of these businesses, and there are hundreds more like them, represents positive and future thinking innovation in the area of textile recycling.
These are exciting times to be involved in this space and great things will come, which will have great impact on the forward thinkers in the retail sector, and I’ll endeavour to keep you posted.
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