As much as 56% of the textiles generated as waste in the US are suitable for fibre-to-fibre recycling. And, this represents a $1.5 billion opportunity for fibre-to-fibre recycling by redirecting non-rewearable textiles from landfills and incinerators to recycling streams.
- The findings and the estimate are from the Sorting for Circularity USA report, published by Fashion for Good on Wednesday.
THE REPORT: The project report delves into consumer disposal behaviour, textile waste composition, and the potential for fibre-to-fibre recycling in the US. It provides insights for making informed decisions for further investments, infrastructure development and the next steps towards circularity.
THE FINDINGS: Of the quantities of textiles generated as waste in the US, 85% are disposed of in landfills and incinerators and only 15% of end-of-use textiles are recovered.
- A variety of collection channels are available to consumers that wish to divert their used textiles for reuse, repurposing, and recycling.
- The ecosystem of charities, thrift shops, and the peer-to-peer economy has served consumers for decades, while new textile recovery programmes such as collection bins, door-to-door collection services, retail take-back, recommerce, and resale, have emerged to complement existing outlets.
- According to a survey, most consumers recognise the inherent value of their unwanted textiles and are already making commendable efforts in utilising diversion channels for rewearable items, but there remains ample room for improvement in augmenting the recovery of non-rewearable textiles for fibre-to-fibre recycling.
- About 60% divert textiles, 4% report discarding textiles, and the remainder utilise both options.
- Overall, condition and fit are leading drivers of textile waste generation, and consumers tend to divert “high-value” textiles and discard “low-value” textiles.
- The primary reasons consumers discard textiles into the bin are, in order of dominance, poor quality, convenience, lack of confidence in knowing what is accepted for donation/reuse/recycling, and scepticism as to whether textiles are actually reused or recycled.
- The leading reason survey respondents choose to divert textiles is to help those in need and support a charity.
- The project analysed a total of 14,884 kg of post-consumer garments across seven regions of the US. On-the-ground evaluations were conducted over two time periods, summer/spring 2023 and autumn/winter 2023, to account for seasonal differences in the garments entering sorting/grading facilities.
- The garment composition analysis found that cotton is the most prevalent fibre type (51%) in the residential post-consumer textile stream followed by polyester.
- When evaluated in terms of suitability for recycling, approximately 9% of residential post-consumer textiles are suitable for mechanical fibre-to-fibre cotton recycling and up to 56% are suitable for chemical fibre-to-fibre recycling.
- Given the scaling and development of recycling technologies, collection channels, sorting capacity, and pre-processing infrastructure, this research informs the business case for fibre-to-fibre recycling and the infrastructure and capacity needed to prepare post-consumer textile feedstock for recycling.
