Feedstock
Concerns surrounding textile waste continue to grow, with the high turnover rate of clothing attracting both public and governmental attention. This has led to a spotlight being placed on the life cycle analysis of textile waste.
To help make a more circular textile economy we have developed a ribbon made from recycled polyester textiles. Meaning that the textile created this way can then be further chemically recycled at its end of life.
We use both pre-consumer polyester (cut offs from garment cutting rooms that would otherwise end up in landfill) and post-consumer waste (polyester textiles collected from clothing bank points in public service buildings). This process is audited and certified by the Global Recycle Standard (GRS).
Manufacturing Process
The collected textiles are processed to remove any non-polyester articles like zips, buttons, and trims. The textiles are then shredded and passed through a heat tunnel; this slightly melts the polyester into uniform sized pieces.
Since polyester is a polymer, it can be broken down into its individual building blocks by the addition of chemicals. This process allows for contaminates, such as cotton thread, dyes, and residual chemical waste, to be removed.
The individual building blocks are then polymerised to create a near virgin quality polyester and extruded into chips/pellets. These chips/pellets are stored until required for being melted and extruded to make filament, of which creates a yarn.
Certifications
Our chemically recycled polyester yarn is certified to the
- Global Recycle Standard (GRS)
End of Life
In theory this ribbon is designed for the circular economy. However, the global waste infrastructure for this is not in operation. There are companies doing research on this, such as Worn Again [1].
We advise and promote the re-use of our products to help reduce the environmental impact we all have on the planet.
If you would like to read more on this reference, please follow the link below
