Textile and Clothes Waste Recycling

Recycling textile waste involves reprocessing old clothes for reuse. Methods of textile recycling vary depending on the type of material. Most processes include sorting, cleaning, shredding, and spinning fibres to create new fabrics and yarn that are used to make fresh items of clothing or other textiles.

Any fabric and clothes waste that’s not wearable or you send for textile recycling will be collected from your business. It’s then transported to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) for sorting. At this point, fabric waste is separated from the rest. There are three main processes for natural textiles, polyester recycling, and other artificial textiles:

• Natural textiles – these are pulled apart into their separate fibres and cleaned. Then they’re spun back into yarn, which is then ready for use to make new fabrics.
• Polyester textiles – with polyester recycling the material is shredded into polyester chips, which are melted down and used to create new polyester fabrics.
• Other artificial textiles – further types of artificial textiles can be reused by other industries and are frequently used in automobiles.

Once the recycled textiles are ready, they’ll be sent to a relevant factory or manufacturer for reuse. For example, some textiles may go to the flocking industry where synthetic and natural fibres are attached to surfaces to fill material – such as furniture padding and car insulation.

Textile waste includes anything spun, woven, or knitted from natural or artificial fibres that are no longer needed. During every stage of production, there’s potential to generate textile and fabric waste – from spinning and weaving to the finished product. Full articles of clothing, offcuts and scraps from manufacturing apparel, bedding, and fabric all class as textile waste.

Clothing waste makes up the bulk of textile waste. This can be from households and businesses that have damaged, old, or unwanted garments ready for disposal. These can be made from a wide range of textiles and materials, which affects how they’re recycled or disposed of properly.

The fashion industry is one of the worst culprits for producing clothing waste thanks to the rise of ‘fast fashion.’ This is the practice of making new clothes and accessories available as quickly and cheaply as possible. The ready availability encourages customers to buy more clothes more often.

However, the lower costs usually come with a decrease in quality. This means consumers are forced to dispose of clothes more often, so they’re caught in an endless loop of buying cheap clothes that don’t last. The manufacturing process also generates a lot of textile waste.