A patent-pending ‘Fiber Shredder’ can shred textiles back down to fibres in 90 seconds. Unlike similar machines already on the market that cut fibres, this new device pulls them apart, keeping them longer and therefore easier to re-spin back into yarns and other materials.
- Six years since Associate Professor Abbie Clarke-Sather at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) began work on this recycling machine, the Fiber Shredder can break down not just fabrics like polyester, cotton and spandex, but also recycle silicone used in products like rubber car mats.
- Surplus textiles often overwhelm donation-based thrift stores like True North Goodwill, leading many unsold garments to end up in landfills domestically and internationally. To help alleviate this issue, the team has partnered with Goodwill to innovate ways to handle surplus textiles, improving sustainability while also getting more value from those unwanted materials.
- Clarke-Sather and her team have a working prototype, and now hope to scale it up for commercial use. Right now, the goal is to see the machine in every Goodwill and thrift store across the country, even in municipalities’ recycling programmes and sustainability conscious clothing brands that want to better handle their own waste.
THE PEOPLE: The Fiber Shredder is the outcome of merging different skill sets from having worked in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering as well as Fashion and Apparel Studies departments at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) of the research team led by Clarke-Sather and her graduate student Paulo Alves.
THE CONTEXT: 92 million tons of textiles are discarded globally each year. Plus, surplus textiles often overwhelm thrift stores even as they sort and resell what they can. But there are more textiles than they can deal with, leading many unsold garments to end up in landfills. The Fiber Shredder hopes to alleviate this issue.
WHAT THEY SAID:
It's interesting to be both faculty and an entrepreneur at the same time. It makes me really excited to feel like I'm part of a broad coalition of people trying to make our world more sustainable. My advice to researchers and students that want to make an impact on the world is to start looking around. There are so many problems. Just pick one and try to figure out a solution.
— Abbie Clarke-Sather
Associate Professor
University of Minnesota Duluth
