CafePress - Rubbish - 100% Cotton T-Shirt

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Fibre recycling technologies do exist, but they are only used on a small scale. Generally, the techniques can be separated into mechanical and chemical recycling. Austrian researchers have also developed techniques using enzymes that allow them to turn old wool clothing into a material that can be used as a resin or adhesive. Much of the problem comes down to what our clothes are made from. The fabrics we drape over our bodies are complex combinations of fibres, fixtures and accessories. They are made from problematic blends of natural yarns, mand-made filaments, plastics and metals.

They have also been able to produce fibres that can turned into yarns by purifying proteins from the algae or even using them to produce a bio-oil that can be turned into bioplastic fibres. There has been success on a smaller scale to effectively separate natural and synthetic blends and capture both types of fibres, without losing either fibre in the process. However, scaling up this technology to an industrial scale remains the challenge. If you were brutal, you’ll probably manage to fill a bin-bag or two with clothes you no longer want or need. But what then? The current fashion system uses high volumes of non-renewable resources, including petroleum, extracted to produce clothes that are often used only for a short period of time, after which the materials are largely lost to landfill or incineration,” says Chetna Prajapati, who studies ways of making sustainable textiles at Loughborough University in the UK. Recycling needs to be incorporated into the current system to make it more circular,” says Prajapati. “Therefore, the way we design clothes needs to change, it needs to facilitate recycling.”

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. 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 – with underwear and t-shirts lasting just one to two years, while suits and coats last for around four to six years. 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. Lin and her team have since refined the process so it can be done on a larger scale using industrially produced cellulose enzymes, and have been working with the clothing retailer H&M to examine what impact this recycling process might have on its textile waste. 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.

Indeed, most of the recycled polyester being used now by leading fashion brands in fact comes from bottles rather than old clothing. Currently most textiles are coloured using synthetic dyes, which are petroleum derivatives, and patterned with complex processes. These processes can require temperatures of up to 100C for cotton, nylon and wool, but higher for polyester and other synthetic fibres. On top of this, the process requires high pressures, long processing times and the use of additional chemicals such as acids and alkalis, which are harmful towards the environment in large quantities. Using recycled, rather than virgin, materials offers an opportunity to drastically reduce non-renewable resource inputs and the negative impacts of the industry, like CO2 emissions, water and chemical use,” says Prajapati. 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, Krebs and her 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.This system puts pressure on valuable resources such as water, pollutes the environment and degrades ecosystems in addition to creating societal impacts on a global scale.”

At Oxfam’s Wastesaver clothes sorting and recycling plant in Batley, Yorkshire, UK, 80 tonnes of old clothes pass through the factory every week. Lorraine Needham Reid, Oxfam’s Wastesaver manager, has worked at the plant for over 10 years. Over that time, however, she has seen a real decline in the quality of clothes that are reaching them, particularly when it comes to the materials used to make the clothes. We need to slow down, take a little time to reconnect with our clothes and appreciate them again,” says Press. “Remember that whatever you are wearing, it took both physical and creative resources to make it.” Algae is already widely used in the beauty industry, in certain foods and it is used to make biofuels. “After learning about all those industries, and the benefits that we get from algae, we asked ‘why not to do this for textiles?’” says Krebs.After working for years at a design company in Germany, Renana Krebs saw behind the scenes how poor the textiles and clothing industry is for the environment. She vowed to do something about it and in 2016, she started Algalife, making fibres and dyes from algae.