“Clothes made from recycled materials”, “XX releases a new collection of recycled clothes”, and “Recycled clothes become new again”.
Headlines about recycled textiles and clothes are overflowing the internet. But in fact, only 1% of everything handed in for recycling becomes new garments [1]. There is a lot of research in the area, and a lot is going on, but there still needs to be a ready-made technology to properly recycle fabrics and clothes on a large scale. What is the reason for this?

The ability to recycle textile fibres has primarily to do with the type of fibres that the original material consists of. Knowledge about materials makes it easier to understand what is possible regarding recycling. We have created an overview to show you the organisation of fibres. It is a rough compilation, so if you want to learn more – feel free to read more at www.tygtilltyg.se
TEXTILE FIBRES – A SCHEMATIC OVERVIEW

Fibres are the primary raw material in a garment spun from threads. Natural fibres and artificial fibres are the fibres used in textile production. Natural fibres come either from the plant kingdom, such as cotton and linen or from the animal kingdom, such as wool and silk.
Artificial fibres, on the other hand, are synthetically produced. Through a chemical process, the fibres make threads that are called filaments. The filament consists of long threads and can be cut shorter to mimic natural fibres or left “infinitely” long. We divide artificial fibres into regenerated fibres and synthetic fibres.
Regenerated fibres are made from cellulose from plant-based raw materials such as pine, spruce, eucalyptus, bamboo, and even cotton. Fabrics made from cellulose are, for example, lyocell, cupro, and viscose.
Synthetic fibres are made from fossil crude oil and sometimes from natural gas. The materials are a type of plastic and can therefore have similar properties. Examples of synthetic fibres are polyester, acrylic, polyamide, and elastane.
RECYCLED FIBRES ARE SHORTER AND HAVE POORER QUALITY
Recycling of fabrics can take place through either mechanical or chemical recycling. Mechanical recycling means that materials are cut and torn and undergo a carding process to loosen the fibres and thus be able to spin new threads.

With today’s mechanical recycling process, the fibres become very short, which makes it difficult to spin new threads. And the shorter the fibres, the poorer the new clothes’ quality. As a result, large amounts of virgin material, often polyester, are added to spin new threads. Therefore, the proportion of recycled material in the final product is marginal. The materials that can mostly contain recycled fibre are coarser fabrics, such as garments made of jeans. As for other materials, such as shirts and t-shirts, no garments are made from recycled textile fibre.
Chemical recycling means that the fibre is converted into a mass to be then able to produce new filaments. Today, there are several research initiatives in chemical recycling, both nationally and internationally.
There are efforts to develop new technologies to recycle certain brands of polyester chemically. Such as, a Japanese company called Teijin recycles its polyester, so this product closes the material cycle.
COMPLICATED TO RECYCLE CLOTHES OF MIXED MATERIALS
We often mix textile fibres to obtain the desired properties of garments. For example, jeans may contain 98% cotton and 2% elastane.
We have to separate the different materials first, and then we can recycle the garment. And this is, unfortunately, a complicated process. To make new jeans, for example, it can be tricky to separate the elastane from the cotton and then get it evenly distributed in the new garment. But a lot of research is being done to fix the problem!

Researchers today actively explore the recycling of textile materials, conducting ongoing work and extensive studies on various fronts. While significant progress is being made, it may take several years for the textile industry to confidently announce a viable solution.
And even with large-scale functioning textile recycling, it will always be more environmentally friendly to use our clothes as long as possible than to make new textiles from old ones.
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