Nearly all your clothes will wind up burned or in a landfill — but scientists are coming up with new ways to recycle those fabrics into new clothes or useful products.
A critical step, though, will be figuring out how to handle blended fabrics that combine different materials, mainly cotton and polyester, into once piece of cloth. Once the fibers are blended together, it’s hard to separate one material from the other so that each can be recycled separately.
Well that’s dandy, but polyester still releases nano and micro plastics by the millions per item of clothe, so it doesnt really help honestly. Plastic clothing should not be manufactured period it’s not even a debate!
Your cotton clothes are recycled today to make the felt batting that goes into your automobiles for sound dampening and insulation. What Goodwill can’t sell is baled and shipped to a factory that shreds it, pounds it, and forms the felt. There are even sorters that separate the clothes in order to get white, grey, or black felt.
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Nearly all your clothes will wind up burned or in a landfill — but scientists are coming up with new ways to recycle those fabrics into new clothes or useful products.
A critical step, though, will be figuring out how to handle blended fabrics that combine different materials, mainly cotton and polyester, into once piece of cloth. Once the fibers are blended together, it’s hard to separate one material from the other so that each can be recycled separately.
Researchers at the University of Delaware are [proposing a new recycling technique](http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado6827?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D58472635973360406641128507375574730336%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1719950689) that breaks down blended fabrics using chemicals and microwaves. The researchers say the process takes 15 minutes and can dissolve any blend of cotton, polyester, nylon and spandex into molecules that can be used to make new fabrics or products like dyes, electronics and tires.
Read more here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/07/05/fast-fashion-clothing-waste-recycling/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/07/05/fast-fashion-clothing-waste-recycling/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
That is awesome especially with fast fashion.
The [paper](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado6827?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D58472635973360406641128507375574730336%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1719950689) in Science Advances.
Well that’s dandy, but polyester still releases nano and micro plastics by the millions per item of clothe, so it doesnt really help honestly. Plastic clothing should not be manufactured period it’s not even a debate!
Your cotton clothes are recycled today to make the felt batting that goes into your automobiles for sound dampening and insulation. What Goodwill can’t sell is baled and shipped to a factory that shreds it, pounds it, and forms the felt. There are even sorters that separate the clothes in order to get white, grey, or black felt.