Textiles and fashion have been identified as priority product groups in the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan. Textiles will have to be collected separately from 2025, yet currently less than 1 % of textile waste is recycled into reusable fibres. Without change from manufacturers and consumers, this situation will create a huge supply-demand gap. The EU-funded SCIRT project addresses this emerging problem by exploring all steps in the production chain of recycled garments.
Tools for recycling, sorting and trimming
SCIRT aims to demonstrate a textile-to-textile recycling system for post-consumer materials. This presents several challenges, notably in effectively separating textiles. According to project coordinator Evelien Dils: “One of the main challenges we started with was the quality of recycled yarns not aligning with the requirements from fashion brands. What has been crucial for this is the improved sorting and dismantling of textile waste before going to recycling and process improvements in the mechanical recycling process itself.” Different paths to recycling were tested in labs and in pilot studies. Enzymatic approaches and thermo-mechanical and mechanical methods were explored. Project partner Valvan developed two mechanical technologies for accurately sorting and trimming textiles at high speed. The Fibersort separates material based on fibre content and colour using robots and near infrared technology. The Trimclean takes the separated fibres and cuts them into small segments ranging from 20 mm to 100 mm in size. The fragments are analysed using cameras and metal detectors to remove non-fibre elements such as tags, buttons and zips.