Advanced post-consumer polyamide fibres REcycling for an innovative circular production of TIGHTS

Introduction

Textile is the world's second largest industrial sector in terms of negative impacts linked to pollution as well as emissions, and the reasons are quite simple to understand. Garments are probably the most common commodity that people buy in the world. According to forecasts, their consumption is set to rise from 62 million tonnes in 2015 to 102 million tonnes in 2030, with a consequent increase in pollution and environmental risks.

Consumption and Disposal

European citizens consume almost 26 kg of textiles each year and dispose of about 11 kg of textiles, mostly through incineration or landfill (87%), with less than 1% of garments being recycled again as clothing. These statistics are mainly due to two factors:

1. Linear consumption patterns
2. Lack of technologies to recycle garments, which are by nature very difficult to manage because of their multi-material composition.

Critical Product Category

In this scenario, the most critical product category is represented by those garments characterized by high production volumes and very short useful life. These garments are made of impactful and non-renewable raw materials and are subject to uncontrolled linear disposal practices. A key example of garments that encapsulate all these negative characteristics are tights.

Project Overview

LIFE RE-TIGHTS wants to provide an innovative circular and sustainable solution for worn-out tights management. The project aims to implement a new business model based on the collection and recycling of end-of-life tights to obtain secondary raw materials to be used in the manufacture of a new generation of high-quality recycled tights.

Objectives

The solutions presented in the project aim to bring virtuous practices beyond the state of the art within the sector. They focus on developing an end-of-life management of tights that allows for maintaining the value within the supply chain. In this scenario, worn-out tights will be used as resources from which to derive new materials, instead of being disposed of through landfills or incinerators.