Textile Polycotton Waste Evaluation and Recycling

Reason

The global textile and apparel industry has a significant negative impact on the environment and climate. Within the EU, clothing sales have risen by more than 40% in recent years, driven by the lower prices at which fast fashion is offered to consumers. These lower costs are due, in part, to the use of cheaper synthetic materials, which are often blended with cotton fibers up to a certain percentage. The blend of polyester and cotton (poly-cotton) is popular and is the most widely used composition in the apparel industry. Due to its resource intensity and continued growth, this sector faces a major sustainability challenge. In the Netherlands, an average of 25 kilograms of clothing is consumed per person per year. Due to the recent increase in the proportion of polycotton in clothing, this waste stream is also expected to grow. Furthermore, in the near future it will be prohibited to incinerate unsold clothing, creating a need for a solution to recycle this complex, mixed material. These circumstances present an opportunity for the Netherlands to play a leading role in the high-quality processing of discarded polycotton textiles into recycled fibers, yarn, and fabric.

Purpose of the project

TEXPOWER’s goal is to enable a transparent circular polycotton textile value chain that can be implemented to support the Netherlands’ future-proof economic potential. This will be achieved through the development of accurate and efficient identification, sorting, and data processing techniques; the development of contaminant removal techniques; developing techniques to lengthen or strengthen fibers during mechanical recycling, developing a unique polycotton processing technology, effectively converting the polyester into spinnable fibers, processing the cellulose pulp into spinnable fibers, and spinning polycotton yarns that can be woven into functional textiles.

Brief description of the activities

Throughout the project, sorting for specific pretreatment and recycling techniques will become precise, consistent, and economically viable. Where possible, mechanical recycling will be used. Where this is not feasible, chemical recycling will be used. This project aims to significantly improve the mechanical recycling of polycotton through more specific sorting of textiles intended for mechanical recycling, through improvements to the defibration process that increase fiber length, through chemical treatment of the textiles that preserves fiber length during defibration, and through spinning and weaving innovations that enable the spinning and weaving of a wider variety of fibers. With these new insights and techniques, it will be possible to mechanically recycle 5–20% of polycotton. The chemical recycling of polycotton involves the chemical breakdown of the polyester fraction, which also produces a cellulose fraction. Fibers are then made from these fractions and spun. This creates a closed-loop system (fiber-to-fiber recycling). It is expected that, starting in 2030, this—together with mechanical recycling—will enable the recycling of 25–37% of textiles (including polycotton).

Results

The intended outcomes of the project are:

• New identification, sorting, and data processing techniques that enable faster, more accurate, and cost-effective identification and sorting of textiles, as well as the generation and processing of data for necessary reports.
• Improved and mechanized techniques for quickly and efficiently removing zippers, buttons, etc.
• Pre-treatment techniques for polycotton textiles intended for mechanical recycling are being improved and scaled up, resulting in longer fibers.
• Poly-cotton treatment techniques for the removal of specific contaminants (elastane, nylon, acrylic, PFAS, etc.)
• A unique technology for the separation of polycotton, which breaks down polyester and cellulose. The combination of processes developed and applied in this technology results in a stream of polyester and cellulose products whose quality has been optimized for further processing.
• Polyester derived from chemical breakdown, which has been proven to be processable into rPET for textile yarn using existing techniques.
• A pilot-scale chemical processing of cellulose pulp that produces cellulose fibers suitable for spinning into yarn.
• New spinning and weaving techniques and insights for processing recycled mechanical and chemical fibers—using the highest possible proportion—into yarn and functional textiles of a quality comparable to virgin fibers, thereby creating fabrics suitable for the market.

Project partners

This unique value chain consortium, comprising exclusively Dutch participants, is of great importance for meeting the Netherlands’ future goal of achieving fiber-to-fiber recycling of textiles, particularly polycotton textiles. With this consortium and the third parties involved, all the relevant roles necessary to establish this new recycling chain have been filled:

• DPI: a Dutch SME whose mission is to collaborate with companies and research institutions to bring about relevant innovations in the field of plastics; acting as a supply chain coordinator, project lead, and communicator/disseminator
• Kringcoop: a collector and processor of approximately 12% of the separately collected textiles in the Netherlands; a waste collector and waste processor
• Frankenhuis: an innovative and leading Dutch mechanical textile processor and recycler; waste processor and recycler
• Saxion: a Dutch knowledge institution and a leader in the Netherlands in the field of textile innovations, including textile recycling; a knowledge or research institute
• Cellicon; a company engaged in the development of platform technology suitable for the chemical delignification of various types of fiber-related streams, including the delignification of polycotton; waste processor and recycler
• Textile Fiber Boost; a Dutch startup specializing in the development of textile pretreatment techniques to preserve fiber length and remove impurities; engineer
• SaXcell: an innovative Dutch small-to-medium-sized enterprise focused on the recovery of cotton fibers from waste streams, including poly-cotton textiles; recycler
• Spinning Jenny: an innovative Dutch small-to-medium-sized enterprise specializing in spinning yarn from recycled fibers, including polycotton fibers; product designer
• Enschede Textielstad Innovatie B.V.; an innovative Dutch small-to-medium-sized enterprise (SME) that specializes in processing recycled yarn into textiles, including polycotton; product designer