How Textile Recycling Works

Aug 14

When you send textiles off for recycling, you’re helping divert valuable resources from the landfill. But if you think that your old clothes are simply shredded and turned back into new clothes, think again; textile recycling is not so straightforward.

There are two primary methods of textile recycling: mechanical and chemical recycling. Mechanical shredding of fabrics typically results in a lower-grade material that is downcycled into things such as insulation or carpet padding. Chemical recycling, on the other hand, can take fabric blends and separate the different materials to be reused several times or more.

We still have a long way to go to achieve a fully circular textile economy. But whether your old clothes are recycled into new ones or downcycled into insulation, the bottom line is that textile recycling diverts waste from the landfill and reduces our reliance on virgin materials.

Piles of clothes sorted by color in an abandoned factory. — *Photo by* *Francois Le Nguyen*

The basics of textile recycling

Generally speaking, recycling is the process of recovering materials and processing them for reuse. Some materials – such as glass, aluminum, and paper – are easily recycled because they are usually homogeneous in nature. Other materials are more difficult to recycle – either because the process of doing so is complicated/expensive, or because the material itself is heterogeneous. Both are true for textiles.

The many different kinds of fabrics

First, textiles are not a homogeneous material. They often contain multiple components such as buttons, zippers, elastics, and more. Not to mention, clothes are often made of multiple types of fabrics. Even a seemingly simple garment might contain multiple fabrics or fabric blends.

Think about the clothes in your closet – or, better yet, look at their care labels: how many different types of fabrics can you find? You might have a few garments that are 100% wool, cotton, or polyester, but chances are that most of your clothes contain multiple kinds of fabrics.

A quick look at my own closet revealed more than a dozen types of fibers:

Nylon
Spandex
Polyester
Rayon
Elastane
Silk
Linen
Cotton
Wool
Tencel
Cupro
Recycled polyester
Recycled cotton

This list just barely scratches the surface; there are hundreds of different fabrics used in the textile industry, each made with a unique combination of threads, colors, and chemicals. As you can imagine, this makes recovering individual materials quite tricky.

That said, some fabrics are more readily recovered than others. Wool and cashmere, for instance, can be shredded and re-spun into yarn without a reduction in quality. In fact, this has been done for over a century by textile producers in the small town of Prato, Italy.

Other fabrics pose a bigger challenge to recycling because of the reduction in quality when fibers are shredded. For this reason, recycled fibers are often spun with virgin ones in order to make them suitable for clothing production. But currently, only a small percentage of recycled textiles are being turned back into clothes. Most of them end up being downcycled into lower-grade products such as insulation.

Sources of textiles for recycling

There are two main textile recycling source streams: pre-consumer textile waste, and post-consumer textile waste. Let’s take a closer look at both below:

Pre-consumer textile waste

When textiles are produced, there's inherently some amount of waste, an estimated 10-20% of all textile waste, in fact. There are steps that textile companies can take to minimize waste, such as using pattern cutting machines that maximize each piece of fabric, but even then there are offcuts. These often end up in the landfill – unless producers set up or participate in a recycling system.

But offcuts are just one source of pre-consumer textile waste. There’s also end-of-season designs that don’t get sold, clothing samples, and garments that don’t meet quality control standards. All of these can be diverted from the landfill by being recycled instead.

Post-consumer textile waste

Fast fashion trends result in mountains of wasted clothes – literally. Whether these are cast-offs that no longer meet current trends or clothes that have truly reached the end of their useful lifespan, they more often than not end up getting landfilled.

The post-consumer textile waste that does get recycled usually comes from one of two main sources: directly from the consumer or from thrift stores. For example, you can send in old clothes and other textiles for recycling by participating in any number of textile recycling programs, online or in person. Some of these programs – such as For Days’ Take Back Bag – are through clothing companies that have partnerships with various sorting/recycling facilities.

But remember those old clothes that you donated to Goodwill? If an article of clothing isn’t sold within a month or two, most thrift stores take it off the floor and send it off to be recycled. This doesn’t mean you should drop off all of your unwanted textiles at thrift stores, however. Charities operate with a limited staff and budget, so it’s better to send true cast-offs (think stained undies or torn clothes) off for recycling directly.

Learn how to recycle your old clothes and other textiles here!

Primary textile recycling methods

Before textiles are recycled, they have to get sorted. At this point, items that are deemed to be in good condition are often separate to be repurposed or resold. A majority gets exported as second-hand clothing, usually to countries in the Global South. Unfortunately, not all of those exported clothes end up getting a second life – investigators have found that many end up in landfills or open-air dumps.

The textiles that remain are recycled one of two ways: mechanically or chemically.

Mechanical recycling

In mechanical shredding, fabrics are shredded and turned into new fibers – usually with a lower tensile strength. This option works best for turning textiles into downcycled products, where the reduced fiber strength doesn’t matter.

Mechanical shredding is a less viable option for textile-to-textile recycling – unless the fabric is homogeneous. For example, textile recyclers in Prato, Italy have been recycling wool without a loss in quality. For other fabrics such as cotton, the recycled fibers usually have to be re-spun along with virgin ones in order to achieve the same tensile strength. While this does increase the overall sustainability of the resulting yarn, it means the product is not infinitely recyclable.

Chemical recycling

Today, most clothes are heterogeneous. They contain fabric blends that are impossible to separate by mechanical shredding, hence the majority of recycled clothes are simply downcycled.

This is where chemical recycling comes in. As the “new kid on the block,” so to speak, chemical recycling is where innovation, sustainability, and fashion meet. In chemical recycling, chemical processes can separate even blended fabrics and recycle the individual materials into new ones.

With polyester, for instance, the polymer is broken down then re-polymerized to create a new material with a virgin-like quality. This allows the material to be recycled multiple times without a loss in quality.

Limitations of textile recycling

The recycling industry relies heavily on individual buy-in for its success. The same is true for textiles: consumers and companies alike need to properly dispose of old clothes and other textiles if they want them to get recycled. The current textile recycling rate is less than 15%, compared to 68% for paper/cardboard and 25% for glass.

Though textile recycling is increasing, so is textile production, leading to more and more textiles ending up in the landfill or shipped overseas. This means that the biggest challenge with textile recycling is really textile overproduction. More than anything, companies need to be held accountable for the waste that they put out there.

Moreover, the industry is lagging in terms of making textile recycling easily accessible for consumers. It takes effort to set aside old clothes for recycling, let alone find a company willing to accept recyclable textiles straight from consumers. If it were easier to recycle textiles, more people would do it.

However, as always it’s important that we don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. While the textile industry is still a long way off from being completely circular, giving fibers a second life – even as insulation – is better than letting them rot in the landfill.

What are recycled textiles made into?

As you can see, there is still a lot of improvement to be had in the textile recycling industry. But demand is increasing, and innovators are working hard to keep up. And remember, even downcycling is important, as it reduces our reliance on virgin materials for low-grade products.

So what really happens to recycled fabrics? What do they get turned into? Although only about 1% actually gets turned back into clothes, there are many useful applications for recycled textiles: