Currently mechanical textile recycling is still in its infancy and the issue of colour and legacy chemicals is one that keeps driving the big players back to nice, clean bottles – something chemical legislators should wise up to. Chemical dissolution methods are like mechanical (thermal) recycling and share many similarities in terms of opportunities and challenges – namely a slight tapering of technical performance, legacy chemicals, and colour largely being viewed as a hindrance, albeit there may be more opportunities for removal of some chemicals.
It is possible to massively reduce chemical risks by exclusively using new, tested, compliant off-cuts from garment makers who manufacture for the most responsible brands – but that severely limits volumes and does nothing for the gazillion existing garments that need recycling to produce raw materials for new products. This could be somewhat alleviated by the use of clever labels in garments that either confirm the presence of certain undesirable chemicals and/or confirm compliance to a specific, dated restricted substances list. It’s doable, but it can’t be done retrospectively.
As someone who has spent the last 25 years working to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals in textiles, it’s clear that overall, virgin textiles have got progressively safer over the past 50 years. We should try and make them safer still but, as someone who has tried reasonably unsuccessfully to get the industry to focus on water use and greenhouse gas emissions, we should be very wary of developing ‘chemical tunnel vision’ and jeopardising environmental progress in other areas.
Anti-chemical campaigners tend to avoid conversations around exposure, concentration, dose, and toxicology
Recycling coloured synthetics via physical or thermal methods would indeed recycle some undesirable chemicals back into the system but one thing that anti-chemical campaigners tend to avoid are conversations around exposure, concentration, dose, and toxicology. From a hazard only perspective, you would not conduct physical or mechanical recycling but from a responsible toxicologist’s perspective, the harmful chemicals may well be present at concentrations at which there are no adverse effects, after blending and dilution by other feedstocks.
Fundamentally, I see dilution to compliance as a bad strategy – but in the case of textile-to-textile recycling I think it may be a least-worst option for the foreseeable future.
If the levels of chemicals in recycled products are problematic to campaigners or legislators, do they have a moral obligation to take steps to close the entire second-hand market? Or introduce mandatory testing of every component of every second-hand item (during which the products are destroyed) – just in case?
Of course, it would be preferable to somehow screen feedstocks to avoid the worst chemicals and it would be desirable to create filtration or separation systems – if possible – to produce white and/or near virgin quality base polymers.
Lastly, we have ‘chemical’ recycling which is essentially depolymerisation of synthetics back to starting materials and the manufacture of new fibres. This is seen as the ‘Rolls Royce’ of synthetic fibre recycling, and it enables clean fibres of equivalent technical performance to be created with one major drawback. Cost.
Some view chemical recycling as ‘true’ circularity with virgin quality fibres being made from textile waste but, just like perpetual motion machines, true circularity can’t and doesn’t exist. There are always some material losses, and it takes energy and often chemical inputs to make starting materials from finished products. And that’s before we even consider the logistics of collection and transport of used textiles to recycling hubs.
How can we move things forward?
If there was an expectation of man-made and synthetic fibre companies to have minimum levels of textile-to-textile recycled content within all their products it would be a good start. This would create a level playing field, mitigate costs, mitigate the inevitable slight drop-off in technical performance and most importantly make recycling NORMAL.
Likewise, if fabric manufacturers and brands were expected to have an even greater percentage of textile-to-textile recycled materials across their entire product range it would encourage all types of recycling.
How would those with a vehemently anti bottle-to-textiles stance feel about textile-to-bottle recycling?
Another valid suggestion is to simply consider textiles as a source of recyclable polymer that could be cleansed and used for any end use – as happens with paper and metals. How would those with a vehemently anti bottle-to-textiles stance feel about textile-to-bottle recycling?
The journey to large-scale textile-to-textile recycling will require vision, passion, compromise and common sense. Synthetic fibres should be almost infinitely recyclable – especially into % recycled content products – but natural fibres may only get two lives via physical recycling before entering a dissolution-based recycling stream.
Ultimately this may lead to greater use of man-made cellulosics over cotton. Viscose and lyocell are intended to be different to cotton – softer, more drapey, more lustrous – but do have some technical drawbacks. As those familiar with Renewcell’s technical challenges will know, there are some real issues (related to polymer chain length) that make recycling of cotton into actual viscose or lyocell pretty much impossible but, if you made lyocell-like fibre with a recycled cotton content via a simple dissolution process, you could possibly engineer a range of recyclable fibres that look and feel like cotton, viscose or lyocell.
I believe we’re potentially close to a tipping point on textile recycling, but for that tip to occur we have to look at a basket of pros and cons – not just the cons – and we need the logistics to be developed to collect, sort and dump literally mega tonnes of used textiles at the doors of fibre manufacturers’ large-scale recycling facilities.
Without legal levers and/or taxes, it is only when the cost and hassle of recycled polymer or fibre becomes lower than that of virgin, that we’ll see a significant uptick in volumes to textile-to-textile recycling. So, in all probability, we’re going to need those levers.
At the risk of sounding boring and self-contradictory, to promote recycling, I believe we need to stop promoting recycled products and it must become an expectation and business as usual. For that to happen, legislators should consider a “you must do it but can’t promote it” approach – without mandating perfection.
In the medium term, I’d rather see all clothing items in a major high street store having 5-10% textile-to-textile recycled content than less than 1% of items having 100% recycled content and we should take a macro-view of material flows rather than promoting token gesture perfectionism.
Importantly though, although burning is widely viewed as the work of the devil, if the carbon footprint of textile-to-textile recycling is found to be greater than making virgin materials – and it’s a possibility – we should have the fortitude to promote local, controlled incineration to get energy from waste. It may be the least-worst option for the climate.
