Approximately 70% of Apparel can be Recycled
Accelerating Circularity and Avery Dennison worked together to estimate fiber contents in today’s apparel. These products will one day make their way to collectors, sorters and preprocessors for a second life and eventually recycling.
Our research shows that ~70% of apparel in today’s market can be recycled based on commercial and soon to be commercialized recycling technologies.
The bulk of apparel products ~46%, are blends with the primary fibers of cotton or polyester. These blends would be recyclable in systems that can take cotton, polyester, and up to ~ 2% elastane.
100% cotton, polyester and nylon which make up 23% of our study already have existing commercial recycling options.
· 12% = 100% Cotton
· 8% = 100% Poly
· 3% = 100% Nylon
· 46% are cotton/poly or poly/cotton blends
· 31% other fiber blends
Understanding fiber composition in textile products is the key to unlocking recycling at scale. Collectors/sorters/preprocessors need automated systems to understand exact product fiber composition for delivering textile-to-textile recyclers the feedstocks that meet their requirements not only for fiber blends but also potential contaminants in the products, e.g. banned dyestuffs, chemicals that negatively impact recycling systems and most trims.
Investment in textile recycling plants is happening, but we need integrated data to support the journey to circularity. Today, sorters have to manually separate materials into hundreds of categories or use infrared technologies to make assumptions on garments compositions. Putting a digital trigger such as an RFID label or QR code on a garment to hold standardized data, allows reverse logistic partners to automate the sorting process. Collaboration throughout the industry to get these new system running is critical to success.
At Avery Dennison, “Textile circularity excites us greatly, because we’re confident our innovations can play a pivotal part in completing the loop. Taking a holistic approach, our technologies offer digital triggers, data management, and applications to enable a level of supply chain visibility never seen before. Tracing raw materials and inventory allows businesses to create more efficient production decisions and track any unavoidable waste so that it can be embedded back in the system – fostering a truly circular economy.”
Today it is estimated that less than 1% of post-consumer textiles are recycled. With solutions for tracking fiber contents, our industry will have the ability to move significant quantities of materials into recycling streams for scaled textile-to-textile systems. These systems have the potential to lower GHG emissions, reduce water and chemical impacts and reduce the need for virgin materials. According to the UNFCCC Fashion Industry for Climate Action, “Chemically recycled PET can achieve 5-27% GHG reductions by shifting from virgin PET to chemically recycled PET, depending on the source of feedstock and region of PET production and Mechanically recycled cotton is the most favorable low carbon source.”
Accelerating Circularity is now running U.S. trials to test the ability of circular textile-to-textile systems to work. These trials include multiple actors in each sector from traceability to collection to sorting and preprocessing through the finished garments.
We will learn what works, what’s possible and where there are gaps. For companies who are serious about reducing our environmental impacts they must engage in the development and use of these new systems for traceability, mechanical sorting and recycling fibers. We must also support policies that require the collection and use of spent materials.
This is how change happens.