Textile waste is future raw material says GlobalData

The
COVID-19 pandemic has raised the demand for more responsible products and
fashion firms already have the necessary tools at hand, according to data
analytics company GlobalData. A four-year study by the Renewal Workshop
revealed 82 per cent of what is considered apparel and textile waste can
actually be renewed and resold, effectively meaning brands are ‘sitting on
their next supply chain’, it said.

“The
pandemic has given rise to the more responsible consumer, particularly among
millennials and Gen Z, who are increasingly turning their backs on fast fashion
in favour of more circular, and therefore, more sustainable products, which
have been designed with the minimum waste and often from recycled materials,”
commented Beth Wright, apparel
correspondent for GlobalData, on its website.

“Fashion
firms looking to build back better from the pandemic and engage with this new
breed of consumers, must tap into what is traditionally considered textile
waste as a new raw material,” he added.

A
second report, published by the Textile Exchange’s Accelerating Circularity
project, takes a similar stance. The report states so-called spent
post-industrial and post-consumer materials—the raw material for
textile-to-textile recycling—is the ‘logical industry feedstock’.

They
have the potential to reduce the industry’s reliance on virgin materials along
with lowering water, energy, and chemicals, while avoiding competition with
other sectors for non-textile feedstocks, Globaldata said.

Sweden
seems to be leading the charge in terms of innovation. The country is home to
what recycling firm the Sysav Group claims is the world’s first automated
sorting plant for post-consumer textiles on an industrial scale. With a sorting
capacity of 24,000 tonnes of textiles per year, Sysav says the
newly-operational plant will revolutionise Swedish textile recycling and create
new markets for textile waste.

Sweden
also recently played host to the first retail model of the garment-to-garment
recycling system pioneered by the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and
Apparel (HKRITA). The Looop recycling system launched in one of H&M’s
Drottninggatan stores in Stockholm, with consumers able to watch their old
garments being broken down into fibres and yarns to become the raw material for
knitted new clothes.

H&M
sister brand Monki is also flying the flag for textile-to-textile recycling,
having just launched a new capsule clothing collection made using the so-called
Green Machine technology—a hydrothermal system that can fully separate and
recycle cotton and polyester blended fabrics.

Meanwhile,
the UK Government has recently awarded £5.4 million to a consortium led by the
Royal College of Art (RCA) to establish a Textiles Circularity Centre (TCC).
This will explore methods to turn post-consumer textiles into renewable
feedstocks and develop new supply chains.