The EU is a global leader in textile recycling regulations but recent progress has been slow, according to the Helsinki-based VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

“Proper regulation needs to be in place before we can expect significant advancements in textile recycling rates,” says VTT research professor Ali Harlin. “In Europe alone, around ten billion kilograms of textile waste are discarded annually, with a value of €2-3 per kg, representing enormous business potential, but the complexity of textile raw materials and a lack of regulation continue to pose challenges.

“The EU has long been working on a revision of its Waste Framework Directive which will bring the textile sector under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and make textile companies themselves responsible for organising textile recycling.”

Minimal processing

The Telaketju network of Finnish textile companies and research institutions has researched textile recycling for the past decade and the Telavalue project, which ended last year, aimed to solve many of the sustainability and waste challenges associated with the textile industry.

According to VTT’s principal scientist Pirjo Heikkilä, recycling should always follow the principle of minimal processing.

“If a textile can no longer be repaired or reused, the preferred option is mechanical fibre recycling, where collected and sorted textile waste is opened by shredding the fabric and yarn structure into fibres that can be reused in textile production,” he explains. “When the waste is heavily worn or of low quality, it makes sense to move towards chemical recycling, where fibres are broken down and rebuilt at the polymer or even monomer level.”

Reshoring

According to Harlin, the increase in recycling could bring parts of the textile production chain back to Europe. Currently, however, strong technology development takes place in Northern and Western Europe, while manufacturing expertise is mainly in Eastern and Southern Europe. A functioning European textile recycling ecosystem requires Europe-wide cooperation.

“Individual countries are too small to act alone,” Harlin says. “Europe could soon see the rise of five to ten chemical recycling plants and to feed one chemical plant with textile raw material, we need approximately ten mechanical fibre plants.”

Textile recycling technology is advancing rapidly and cotton can already be successfully recycled, as demonstrated by Infinited Fiber Company, which is working to build a new fibre factory in Kemi, Finland. Cotton and polyester will also soon be able to be separated from each other and chemical methods used in PET bottle recycling could be adapted for pure polyester recycling.

“There are dozens of suitable applications,” says Harlin. “Used textiles can be made into not only new textiles but also nonwoven fabrics, wind turbine blades and even vehicle sound insulation. When textile fibre is mixed with concrete, the structure becomes lighter and more fire-resistant. In asphalt, textile fibre reduces the formation of ruts in the road.”

Workwear

The popularity of price-cutting ultra-fast fashion is a major problem for textile recycling. Low-quality and mixed composition textiles are difficult to recycle profitably. The workwear sector, on the other hand, is already in a more favourable situation.

“Workwear is mainly purchased as a service, which means that the quality, maintenance, washing and repair of the clothes are in order,” says Heikkilä. “Textiles are used for as long as possible and the business model encourages the use of durable, high-quality materials. When a garment reaches the end of its lifecycle, recycling back to textiles is easier because the materials of the textiles are well known.”

According to Eetta Saarimäki, VTT senior scientist, not all complex textile structures and blended materials can be recycled into new textiles.

“However, through thermo-mechanical recycling, these materials can be used to produce composite products, giving them a new life one more time,” she says.

The public Telavalue research project of VTT, LAB University of Applied Sciences and Turku University of Applied Sciences was funded by Business Finland together with 17 companies and other organisations. The Telavalue project is part of the of Metsä Group and Fortum’s ExpandFibre ecosystem. The research on textile recycling continues in the EU-funded tExtended and Pesco-Up projects, where numerical values are calculated for the costs and environmental impacts of different recycling methods.

www.vtt.fi