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Fabric creation
Published in Claudia E. Henninger, Kirsi Niinimäki, Marta Blazquez, Celina Jones, Sustainable Fashion Management, 2023
Claudia E. Henninger, Kirsi Niinimäki, Marta Blazquez, Celina Jones
In the past, cotton waste has been used to produce fibres through mechanical shredding (Esteve-Turrillas and de la Guardia, 2017). A key advantage here is that it makes use of already-existing resources, which has a key benefit for the environment. Current challenges with reusing raw materials are linked to the quality and performance of these recycled yarns, which are dependent on the fabric structure of the cotton waste (e.g., woven or knitted) and the finishing processes applied to the textile. A company that has successfully implemented a closed-loop recycling process is MUD Jeans, which uses 40 per cent GRS-certified, post-consumer, recycled cotton content in its jeans. It highlights its preference for using recycled post-consumer denim in its products, which is sourced from its own garments (MUD Jeans, 2021). Reusing predominantly its own denim jeans to make its post-consumer waste denim yarn brings advantages, as it can be sure that its material is “made from environmentally friendly materials; namely recycled and organic cotton” (MUD Jeans, 2021). This links back to Chapter 1.4, where we discussed circular design approaches.
Cellulose
Published in Antonio Paesano, Handbook of Sustainable Polymers for Additive Manufacturing, 2022
Kearns (2017) explored the use of cellulose derived from recycled cotton as a filler for polymeric FFF filaments. Cotton has some advantageous properties as a filler: (a) it is a good conductor of heat, favoring uniform heating and melting throughout the filament; (b) it gains strength when wet and hence is suited in presence of moisture; (c) its crystallinity does not decrease during processing; (d) its aspect ratio exceeds that of other cellulosic materials and is more effective than the latter ones at improving strength and stiffness in composites. Filaments were extruded from pellets made of different amounts of recycled cotton, Ingeo™ 4043D PLA, and 1 wt% lubricant. Filaments’ tensile properties were: strength 43−61 MPa, modulus 116−121 MPa, and strain at break 4.6−6.9%, depending on the cotton content. Tensile properties of dumbbell coupons from the above pellets depended on the cotton content, and were: strength 82−122 MPa, modulus 366−372 MPa, and strain at break 3.9−4.8%. Increasing cotton from 10 to 15 to 20 wt% raised strenght and strain but left basically unchanged the modulus.
Waste Generation and Management
Published in Barry L. Johnson, Maureen Y. Lichtveld, Environmental Policy and Public Health, 2017
Barry L. Johnson, Maureen Y. Lichtveld
As shown in Figure 12.2, textiles are a significant item in the waste stream. Some critics point out the damage being caused by a throwaway culture that is fueled by inexpensive clothing, which has seen a sharp rise in the number of garments annually sold around the world [107]. In a nascent effort to reduce the volume of textile waste, some fashion firms are turning to recycling of textile material for conversion into new fashions and for other uses. For instance, a company in Sweden launched a line of jeans containing recycled cotton and will offer an annual €1-million ($1.16 million) prize for new techniques to recycle clothes. On a smaller scale, Finnish entrepreneurs have managed to produce sweat shirts from 100% recycled cotton after improving existing recycling techniques and by recycling offcuts from clothes factories. However, others believe that recycling is just a distraction from the real challenge of the fashion industry: persuading customers to keep wearing their clothes for longer. To that end, a British designer is offering a 30-year guarantee on a range of T-shirts [107].
A study on textile recycling in college student residence areas
Published in The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2022
Jonathan Y. Chen, Katherine Polston, Eve Nicols, Becky Phung
Principally, there are two possibilities for the recycling solutions: (1) dismantle of the disposed textiles/apparels to their original fiber forms for producing new textiles or reinforcing plastic composites; (2) extraction of same type of fiber for new fiber spinning, e.g. merging recycled synthetic fiber with virgin polymers or regenerating new cellulose fiber from recycled cotton/rayon. However, these recycling solutions are not deliverable practically because of two appalling challenges. The first challenge is difficulty of fiber separation. Because a fiber blend means a mixture of 2 or more fiber contents with a certain blending ratio during yarn formation, it is practically impossible to separate each fiber content in the blended yarns that are woven or knitted into the apparel fabrics recycled. The second challenge is uncertainty of fiber quality recovered from recycled textiles. Before adopting recycled fibers in their production lines, textile or plastic end-users have specific requirements for recycled fiber such as fiber content purity, clearness, and other physical and chemical properties. However, few recycling processes are available to recover fiber with controlled quality. Without the fiber quality delivery, it is unlikely that end users would be willing to partner with textile recycling operation.
Environmental perspectives of textile waste, environmental pollution and recycling
Published in Environmental Technology Reviews, 2022
Quan Zhou, Quyet Van Le, Lingbo Meng, Han Yang, Haiping Gu, Yafeng Yang, Xiangmeng Chen, Su Shiung Lam, Christian Sonne, Wanxi Peng
The textile recycling technology is divided into the following categories: primary recycling that is processed by donation or hand transformation of old textile into other supplies, secondary recycling of physical, mechanical and chemical technologies to convert textile waste into new products, and tertiary recycling that uses pyrolysis, gasification and hydrolysis for fuel production [28]. Recycled cotton fibres are used in the production of carpets, composite and coarse sand production, as well as raw materials for building insulation materials [29–32]. It is reported that recycling textile waste reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 53%, reduces chemical processing-related pollution by 45% and reduces eutrophication level by 95% [33]. At present, 95% of the world’s jute fibres are produced in developing countries [34]. Jute fibres are used in sound-absorbing materials due to their good sound absorption and insulation properties, while acrylic fibre, wool fibre, nylon fibre and polypropylene fibre are suitable for making thermal insulation materials and mattresses [35–40]. To improve the recovery rate of this kind of textile waste, France has implemented a policy that makes the recovery rate of textile waste reach 90%, of which 50% is recycled and exported to other countries [41]. Of the recycling, 20% are synthetic fibres used for cushions, insulating materials, car linings, building materials and fibre carpets [41,42]. Automotive textiles comprise many fibre types, and these are recycled separately into control boards, which is a valuable resource for the sustainable development of building materials after classification (Figure 2) [43,44].