Chemical Recycling

In what could be a game-changing research, a bunch of young chemists from Europe promise to revolutionise sustainability in the apparel industry by breaking down the polyester in polyester-cotton blended garments while preserving the cotton fibres.

Scientists at Cornell Unoversity in the US have developed a chemistry toolbox to clean up a formidable environmental foe: polyester textile waste. The concept has the potential to disrupt the textiles and apparel production business,

Korean scientists are working to build multi-scale facilities for the chemical recycling of clothing waste, especially polyester, which can then be used as clean feedstock as the sorting method eliminates most organic impurities including intractable dyes.