Where are recycled fabrics coming from?
Recycled fabric doesn't come from old clothes
According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, only 1% of the world's clothing gets recycled to make a new fabric.
Surprising, right?
It's as if the Earth is stuck in a bad relationship with our old garments.
So, why is it like this, you ask?
First off, it's not easy for a brand to get back their worn-out clothes. Let's be real; the average consumer isn't about to send back a used garment at the end of its life; it's much easier to throw it away.
Sure, some brands try to sweeten the deal by encouraging customers to send back their clothes with a little extra discount.
This helps, or it's better than nothing, but it may look like a marketing tool from the brand to push you into purchasing a new garment, and it's restricted to the fact that you will have to buy something new.
An interesting platform has been developed by the Italian beachwear brand Seay, a certified B Corp. They have introduced the RE3 model, incorporating a QR code that allows you to trace the old garment, ensuring it doesn't end up in the desert of Ghana. They also offer this service to other brands, aiming to scale up their collecting schemes.
Here if you want to hear more in a short talk:
Consumer education is crucial to allowing swift change. Brands should partner with recycling companies, and the government should support this, but it is such a non-profitable business that everybody is slowing down this process.
Let's start to have a look at what type of recycled fabrics are used the most.
What Are the Most Commonly Used Recycled Fabrics?
Recycled Polyester = PET bottles
When you see the sentence “this garment is made out of 100% Recycled Polyester,” most of the time it means that the material is coming from a PET bottle. Most of the recycling material out there comes from there.
Otherwise, it may come from fabric or garment production waste but it will be a minor percentage. Soon or later some start-ups will find a way to increase this % (maybe Seay will be one of them).
Plastic bottles come mostly from local recycling schemes but can also be part of a more specific initiative like TIDE from Switzerland that works together with local NGOs to collect plastic bottles from the ocean and have a more transparent supply chain.
In this way, they clean the areas around beaches and help local people to get some jobs creating the base for a new raw material.
I had a talk with them some time ago in case you want to learn more about it:
Recycled Nylon = Fishnets
Another smaller but well-known recycled material is recycled nylon, usually coming from fishnets.
You can have a specific branded Recycled Nylon like Econyl used by Prada and others or InResst with a vertical supply chain originating from the fishnet collecting scheme that allows them to trace the material from the source more than others.
Sometimes there are several traders in between that can weaken the sustainability claim. Trust only the ones that have a visible and traceable supply chain.
Natural Fibres
Moving into natural fiber, recycled cotton is the leading natural recycled fiber. You can get recycled cotton mostly from production mills' waste, garment factory waste or in certain specific cases from hotel bed sheets (the white colour helps the recyclability).
It is also possible to get recycled wool, mostly from the supply chain waste, however the market share is only about 6% of the total wool and the technical specification are generally lower than the virgin one, especially if the wool is coming from an old garments.
While recycled polyester and recycled cotton are pretty much available to the virgin material supplier, for recycled nylon, you have more specialised companies like the ones I mentioned above.
If you want to make good communication with your audience about the recycled fiber you have in your collection you may consider using one of those well-known companies that can support the communication and marketing part. However, they may come with higher costs and MOQ than the local supplier with a GRS certification (never do communication without certification or a good and proven chain of custody, especially now).
How do we recycle the material?
There are 2 ways to recycle the materials: Mechanical Recycling and Chemical recycling (NEW).
Mechanical Recycling:
Most of the recycled material you see out there is mechanically recycled. In this case, the material is cleaned, chopped, and sometimes melted into reusable fibers.
The positive note of mechanical recycling is that it has been adopted already about 40 years ago, so it’s a well-known method.
It's a simple process that doesn't require much energy, and it's the cheapest way to do recycled fabric.
On the flip side, the negative side is that the quality downgrades from virgin.
It can be recycled a limited number of times, and you can do it only for PET bottles or long-fiber materials (cotton, wool, cachemire, etc...).
Best examples
In the 1970s, Prato, a town in Italy (1970 for the younger generations), emerged as a pioneer in textile recycling. The city proactively embraced sustainable practices and developed innovative methods at the time for mechanically recycling old garments and textile waste. Prato covered the entire recycling process at a local scale, from collecting discarded textiles to breaking them down and transforming them into new wool, cachemire and other fabrics, contributing to a circular economy.
This serves as an excellent example, highlighting the importance of local initiatives and emphasizing how small steps can lead to significant evolutions.
Chemical Recycling:
Chemical recycling uses temperature and pressure to break down the material to the molecular level, but sometimes it may involve also solvents.
There are three methods for chemical recycling, two of them use solvents to dissolve the chemical products and keep the material pure (one for nylon and one for PET), and the other one uses high temperatures that can reach 600 degrees.
The positive notes are that you can get the material as good as per the virgin quality and you can recycle it several times.
You can recycle old garments with different compositions into new fabrics, and you can take out the dyestuff in the process.
On the other hand, it is an energy-intensive process, expensive, and difficult to scale up.
In fact, one of the main examples of chemical recycling was Renewcell which created viscose from cotton in a material called Circulose, also used by H&M. After flagging weaker adoption from the brands that promised to use it, on the 25th of February 2024, they declared bankruptcy.
Another example is called Infinite Fiber, but they still haven't scaled it up and they seem to be in a similar path as Renewcell.
The chemical recycling techniques are in the spotlight of researchers to find a way to regenerate materials. However, it is still considered not yet a mature technology to be scaled up.
Conclusion
The journey of recycled fabrics reflects the complexities of sustainable fashion.
While innovative initiatives offer hope, challenges like consumer engagement and supply chain transparency persist. As mechanical and chemical recycling methods advance, collective action is crucial for getting into a truly circular economy in the fashion industry.
It's an evolving journey and we can make the change only is we keep on making questions to our supplier and challenge their comfort zone.
