The Future of Fashion: Should We Embrace Recycled Fabric for a Greener World?

With the world becoming more aware of the impact of fast fashion on the planet, recycling fabric has been one of the ways to limit the amount of fashion waste going to landfill. But what is recycled fabric, how is fabric recycled and is it actually a sustainable option?

What Is Recycled Fabric?

Recycled fabric is a sustainable process that is currently being implemented in the fashion industry in order to combat the negative side effects of fast fashion and the constant influx of new clothes into the market.

It’s not imagination for mw to tell you that tons of wasted fabric scraps are left on the factory floor every day, to be thrown into a quickly-filling landfill site somewhere in the world. In most cases, fabric scraps aren’t even made from natural fibers, which further exacerbates the looming environmental crisis.

While turning these waste materials into recycled fabric isn’t enough to fix the problem, it can slow down the worsening pollution problem that is plaguing the fashion industry until a better solution is found. At the moment, recycled fabrics are a crucial element in helping create a sustainable alternative to garment production.

Interestingly enough, a lot of recycled fabrics aren’t mostly made from discarded natural fibers but from plastic materials such as water bottles. Other materials that are included in the construction of recycled fabrics include food waste, reprocessed cotton fabrics, and other natural fibers.

A related article will more teach you more about how cotton is turned into fabric if it’s of interest.

What Are The Methods Used To Recycle Fabrics?

There are two main ways of recycling materials into fabric: mechanical and chemical. I’ll be going a bit more in-depth about the individual processes and discussing the pros and cons of both as well.

Mechanically Recycled Fabrics

As the name implies, this method of manufacturing recycled fabrics exclusively utilizes industrial-grade machines. Mechanical manufacturing of recycled fabric will include shredding, carding, and spinning to create (technically) brand new fabrics from old materials. For wasted fabrics, the discarded garments will be shredded and carded to extract the fibers.

Mechanical recycling of fabric is the recommended method when it comes to materials such as mono-fiber cotton due to its higher fiber yield. Once the discarded and scrap fabrics are shredded, they will be sent to a garnett machine that will perform the fiber extraction. Garnett machines are heavy-duty contraptions that will handle the carding of the shredded materials.

It is a pretty intimidating machine, to be honest, with its rows of sharp teeth attached to a rotating cylinder positioned on a parallel axis that will transform the shredded materials down to their component fiber forms. Once the fibers are properly extracted, they will be mixed in with virgin fibers with longer fiber lengths. The amount of virgin fibers will depend, as the more of these are added, the finer the yarn will be.

The blended fibers will then be spun into yarns to create both woven and knitted fabric. While recycled fabric is relatively new in the industry, garnett machines have been around for decades. So, why is it that recycled fabrics have just started to gain traction recently? Well, limitations in technology are the main hurdle.

Back then, the fabrics that could be made using mechanical fabric recycling tended to fall into the shoddy and low-quality variety. Hence, fabrics made through this method are relegated to creating rags, carpets, and fillings for insulation.

Modern textile machines can recover more than 2 cm of fiber length, which is significantly more than an older generation of garnett machines can deliver.

What are the advantages of mechanical fabric recycling?

The biggest advantage of mechanical recycling is that the fabrics produced using this method will barely go through any sort of chemical treatment or processing. The only instances wherein chemicals will be utilized with this method are during the dyeing stage, and even that is not entirely needed as the fabric scraps used will already have colors.

Additionally, modern mechanical recycling processes can significantly increase fabric variations, with some fabric recycling companies able to produce recycled yarns with an average count range of 24s to 28s and higher.

What are the disadvantages of mechanical fabric recycling?

The main disadvantage with mechanically recycled fabrics is one that is also extremely noticeable. Most, if not all, mechanically recycled fabrics will have a notably lower-quality texture compared to those made from all-natural virgin fibers.

Mechanically recycled fabrics tend to have a coarser texture. However, certain chemical treatments can help eliminate this problem. That said, we can’t really call it mechanical fabric recycling in the traditional sense if it includes a prominent chemical processing stage now, can we? The most likely scenario in the future will probably be a hybrid of the two fabric recycling methods.

Chemically Recycled Fabrics

The next method for creating recycled fabric involves a rather complicated procedure that incorporates the use of various chemicals. Discarded fabric material will undergo a chemical procedure that will dissolve the textile and break it down to form a new fiber compound or extract a specific compound from the mix.

Unlike its mechanical counterpart, chemical recycling of fabrics will not suffer from reduced properties and will generally produce the same amount of output as the traditional way of making fibers and fabrics. This improved production quality also expands the use of recycled fabrics that come from this method.

What are the advantages of chemically recycling fabric?

One of the biggest benefits of chemically recycled fabrics revolves around one of its specific products: recycled polyester. Being able to repurpose polyester material can have a huge long-term positive impact on the environment, as we can effectively reduce plastic waste by a decent percentage. Additionally, chemically recycled polyester is nearly identical to virgin polyester and takes considerably fewer resources to produce. As much as 50% less, based on recent studies.

What are the disadvantages of chemically recycling fabrics?

At the moment, chemical recycling technology has certain limitations that limit its application to a small number of scenarios and materials. This may not be the case in the future as technology evolves, but this is the current situation with chemical recycling.

Another major concern regarding this particular method of recycling fabric is the toxic by-products that it will leave after the process is complete. With the use of various chemicals, it is crucial that manufacturers apply proper disposal that follows environmental safety guidelines. This notion is especially true considering that mercury and cadmium are two common left-over substances in the chemical recycling process.

Additionally, chemical recycling will require significantly more energy than mechanical recycling and also produce more CO2 emissions.

Why Is Fabric Being Recycled?

The primary reason why a lot of companies are now looking into recycling fabric boils down to the environment. As we all probably already know and feel by now, our environment is not exactly doing too well right now.

By reducing waste, companies can lower their pollutant emissions and reduce their overall production costs as they can cut budgets for dumping in landfills and disposal. Another reason why companies have started recycling fabrics is the goodwill that it can garner for their brand amongst various environmental movements around the world.

Besides that major factor, there are also other reasons as to why textile recycling is gathering steam within the fashion industry nowadays. Here are several other rationales as to why it is important to recycle fabric:

• Recycling can deliver both environmental and economic benefits to everyone
• Recycling fabric reduces the need to find new resources
• Recycling textiles can lower the demand for dyes and fixing agents
• Recycled fabric can provide low-cost yet decent-quality clothing

What Materials Can Be Recycled Into Fabric?

A wide variety of materials can be recycled and turned into fabric, and you’ll be surprised how broad the viable options are. I’ll be listing materials that can be recycled into fabric, either via mechanical or chemical recycling processes.

Here are the materials that can be used to create recycled fabric:

Textile waste such as:

• Cashmere
• Cotton
• Leather
• Nylon
• Polyester
• Wool

Besides those discarded fabrics above, these materials can also be used to create recycled fabrics:

• Fishing nets
• Fish scales
• Paper
• Plastic bottles
• Rubber
• Vegetable and fruit products (ex. pineapple leaves)
• Wood fiber

Other Ways To Recycle Materials

Alongside the actual recycling of materials into new fabrics, there are also some amazing designers who are making use of headstock fabrics or – in the case of Zero Waste Daniel – using the scraps from the cutting floor to create whole garments that are patch worked together to create unique and lusted after designs.

So while the world is slowly becoming more aware of the waste created in fashion and the underlying issues of non-sustainable fibers being used, at least there are some designers who are activity doing what they can to lessen the impact, one garment at a time.

You can learn more about sewing sustainably if this has whetted your appetite for more information on sustainable sewing practices!

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