HONG KONG – Crystal Group, the Asian clothing giant, has teamed up with US technology firm PurFi to launch a fabric waste upcycling pilot at its garment factories in Sri Lanka.
The new project is expected to convert hundreds of tonnes of garment waste into ‘high quality’ synthetic raw fibre to make yarn in a bid to fuel the fledgling circular economy.
US-based PurFi uses fabric data derived from unique algorithms for each bale of incoming textile waste, which is then stored in a central database. This is then used to select the most relevant input streams to match the target fabric output via a complex, patented, mechanical process to separate and recycle textile fibres, which it claims are equal quality to virgin fibres.
It’s claimed this technology has been used commercially by the likes of Ford, Mazda, Staples, Walmart, M&S, Sainsbury, Rockline Industries, U-Haul and Nike.
