Do you know how your clothes are recycled?

The first thing to know is that, for your clothes to be recycled, you must put them in the right container. Remember that there are special containers in different places in your municipality. From there, what happens to your clothes?

Sorting

The garments are taken to a textile management plant, where those in good condition are selected to be sold in second-hand shops. If they are classified as unfit for sale (for example, stained or torn items), they have to be recycled. Some end up being incinerated, but others are saved to go through textile recycling and are brought back into the value chain.

Several aspects have to be considered during recycling: types of fabric, fibre blends, sorting by colour, technologies that make the process easier… Below we explain some of these points.

Upcycling, downcycling and recycling

Before we start, we need to clarify a few concepts. When we turn waste into a new product or material of higher quality than the original, we talk about upcycling. If a garment becomes another product with the same purpose and value as the original, it is recycling. And finally, if we turn a product into another one of lower quality, it is downcycling.

To make it clear, here is an example of processing:

• From T-shirt to technical astronaut suit → Upcycling
• From T-shirt to T-shirt → Recycling
• From T-shirt to blanket → Downcycling

Reprocessing routes

There are two processes for recycling garments: mechanical recycling and chemical recycling. Mechanical recycling is the most developed and the one traditionally used. The first step is to sort the waste by colour and material. Then buttons, zips, buckles and trims (impurities) are removed so the clothes can be shredded into fibres. This process damages the fibres, so virgin fibres and some recycled ones have to be added for the resulting material to have optimal strength.

With chemical recycling, on the other hand, the fibre is broken down using high temperatures that melt and solidify it. This process transforms the waste back to its natural state and recovers the quality of the original material.

The challenge of textile recycling

Recycling is a good way to minimise waste and optimise the use of resources, but it has its challenges. The mechanical process is not very efficient, as the fibres degrade over time and it is not an infinite cycle. And although chemical recycling may seem the best option, it brings problems of its own: it has a huge energy impact and generates greenhouse gas emissions.

That is why the current challenge is to find a way to make this process more environmentally sustainable. In our article on the ITMA 2023 fair we already told you about some of the major advances being made in this area.

Here is an image that sums up the value chain of clothing: