Improving Textile to Textile Recycling

Textile waste is one of the biggest environmental issues facing the fashion industry today. In an effort to reduce this, we are seeing many brands opt for recycled materials like Econyl, Repreve and more. But the options in end to end textile recycling are still pretty limited. While advances have been made in recycled polyester, recycled natural fibers haven't seemed to catch on quite as strongly. Furthermore, many fabrics today are blends of natural and plastic fibers making them traditionally impossible to fully recycle to new fabric. Here's how these options are improving and their impact on the industry:

Making Cotton New Again
​To meet the sustainable fashion demand, Recover is making giant leaps to bring recycled textiles to the forefront. Recover uses recycled fibers as its raw material to prevent them from ending up in landfills or being incinerated. They stray from virgin materials and don't use water or chemicals while also reducing their energy sources and CO2 emissions.  Here are the fabric types they offer:

• RCotton - A family of Recover™ fiber products made from unblended recycled cotton fiber, made from recycled cotton and denim.
• RColorBlend - A family of Recover™ fiber products that have undergone a proprietary ColorBlend Process to achieve the perfect combination of performance and color matching accuracy. This includes cotton polyester blends which historically haven't been recycled.
  

Negative Impact from Traditional Textiles

• Water pollution: When new textiles are being produced, they need to be rinsed repeatedly and if harsh, dangerous chemicals are used, that will severely impact the water quality where production is taking place.
• Greenhouse gasses: Any textile waste that isn't being repurposed, sits in landfills and produces greenhouse gases that are released into the air. Futrhermore, because most textiles are a polyester blend they can take anywhere from 20-200 years to decompose.

Environmentally Friendly Impact of Recycled Textiles
By using recycled textiles, water pollution and usage decreases because of the reduction in virgin materials made. By using recycled textiles you are also diverting textile waste to landfills and putting it back into use again. Emphasizing a recycling program within your production team will improve your environmental impact and empower your customers to be more conscious consumers. 

Utilizing the option to repurpose textiles will help your brand on its journey towards sustainability and using recycled fibers is a realistic way of transforming the fashion industry. ​Having companies like Recover, will help pave the way for the new wave of sustainability and encourage brands to make a more conscious choice of the textiles they're using. 

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