Languishing in the back of cupboards and bottom of drawers are outfits that don’t fit any more, items that have gone out of fashion, or even clothes that have never been worn. Around 85% of all textiles thrown away in the US – roughly 13 million tonnes in 2017 – are either dumped into landfill or burned.
There are good reasons to seek out alternatives to chucking clothes in the bin – globally the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, with textile production alone is estimated to release 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. Vast amounts of water are also needed to produce the clothes we wear too and the fashion industry is responsible for 20% of global waste water.
While most clothes with care will last many years, changing fashions mean their lifespan is artificially shortened by consumers changing tastes. Industry figures suggest modern clothing will have a lifespan of between 2-10 years
Would recycling our clothes help to reduce the toll our fashion addiction has on the environment?
Currently just 13.6% of clothes and shoes thrown away in the US end up being recycled – while the average American throws away 37kg of clothes every year. Globally just 12% of the material used for clothing ends up being recycled. Compare that to paper, glass and plastic PET bottles – which have recycling rates of 66%, 27% and 29% respectively in the US – and it is clear clothing lags behind.
The Challenges in Recycling
Sorting textiles into different fibres and material types by hand is labour intensive, slow and requires a skilled workforce. Growing use of modern fabric blends in clothing also makes it hard to do this mechanically too, although European researchers have been developing techniques that make use of hyperspectral cameras – which can see light beyond the limits of human vision – to better identify different fabric types. Once sorted, the dyes that have been applied to the fabrics need to be removed in order for yarns to be reused.
The majority is sent for recycling in some way, but about six tonnes of the garments are of such poor quality they are simply torn up so they can be used as industrial cleaning clothes and stuffing for mattresses or car seats.
What is the Solution? The way we design clothes needs to change, it needs to facilitate recycling.
Brand 1: QMilk
One option is to create new types of materials altogether, from different sources, that either won’t have the same impact on the environment or might be easier to recycle. Some are even looking at turning other types of waste – such as off milk – into clothing.
When milk turns sour, it separates into whey at the bottom and protein flakes on top. When you remove the whey, you are left with a kind of cottage cheese.
“This cottage cheese is put into a machine that works like a noodle machine,” says Anke Domaske, founder of QMilk, a company that has been developing new types of biodegradable fibres in Hemmingen, Germany. “Together with water you create a dough. At the end there is a spinneret with holes so fine that you do not end up with noodles, but fine fibres that are thinner than hair.”
Brand 2: Algalife, making fibres and dyes from algae.
Algae is already widely used in the beauty industry, in certain foods and it is used to make biofuels. One benefit is the algae are harvested in a closed system, meaning there is no freshwater used in the process at all. All the algae need to grow is water and sunlight. By extracting natural colourings from different types of algae, Algalife’s team have been able to combine these with enzymes and fixative agents – which help to bind the pigment to a fabric – from synthetic and natural sources, including oak galls, pomegranate rind and juniper needles.
Individual actions can change the way clothes are recycled, a few of the suggestions are:
Old clothes can be reused for making cushions, handbags, quilts etc.
Damaged clothing can be used as rags and dusters.
Bright colored fabrics can be used for borders in a lampshade.
Head and wrist bands can be made with fabrics with electrifying colors.
Old garments can be transformed into works of art; like sewing patches, buttons and beads into old garments, ironing graphics, etc
So while recycling and more sustainable fabrics will be a key part of the solution, consumers too will need to change their behaviour if we hope to lessen the impact that the fashion industry is having on our planet.
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