Posted on August 8, 2022.


An interesting article from RecoverTM throws some light on recycling for textile production - "When Talking About Recycled Materials, Origin Matters."


Recycling currently causes a lot of confusion as well as conflict on whether or not it is an acceptable fabric for fashion. I use recycled polyester fabric, which I believe is currently a stepping stone, not a solution. Any educated reading on this matter always helps me with my choices, now and in the future. The introduction to the article reads as follows:-


"Campaigns advertising textile products made of recycled materials are becoming more frequent. But do we have a clear idea of where these recycled materials come from? Do consumers assume recycled cotton or recycled polyester comes from used clothes? Because, in most cases, they do not.


Recycled material refers to a material that would have otherwise been disposed of as waste or used for energy recovery, but has instead been reprocessed as a material input, in lieu of new primary material, for a recycling process.


The items diverted from the waste stream can be used garments, but also plastic bottles, fishing nets, yarns, wool carpets or industrial waste generated in garment manufacturing, among many other sources. Recycled polyester for example can come from post-consumer bottles (collected from the consumer or from beaches and oceans) and from post-industrial polyester fabrics or even from post-consumer textile fabrics.


In most cases, the origin matters. Not only because it might be more challenging to process one or the other (post-consumer usually being the most challenging), but also because the environmental urgency to recycle certain streams can be higher (because this waste has a higher chance of polluting the environment)."


Full article available here .