Waste textiles exceed 20 million tons per year, how to increase the recycling rate

At present, my country’s waste textiles reach 20 million tons per year. Although an industrial chain from recycling, sorting, disassembly and inspection to processing and utilization has been formed, the recycling rate of waste textiles is still less than 20%. How to achieve high-quality recycling of waste textiles is Important topics of concern in the industry at present.

Uncontaminated textile waste, old clothing, low-quality cotton and other garbage are recyclable;

Uncontaminated waste textiles, such as old clothes, ingredients, spinning, packaging, plastic products, etc., are also recyclable.

But from this we can feel that the amount of waste textiles is beyond our imagination. According to the "White Paper on China's Waste Textile Recycling Technology Progress" recently released, my country produces up to 20 million tons of waste textiles every year.

Under the guidance of relevant policies in recent years, my country has initially formed an industrial chain of recycling, sorting, dismantling, processing and utilization of waste textiles. Nevertheless, the recycling rate of waste textiles in my country is still less than 20%.

According to data from the Institute of Foresight Industry, in the recycling of renewable resources, the recycling value of waste textiles has increased significantly, and the proportion increased by more than 50% in 2017. Therefore, how to achieve high-quality recycling of waste textiles is an important issue in the industry. This is also the original intention of the "2019 Green Industry Chain Innovation Forum for the High-Value Utilization of Waste Textiles" held in May 2019.

Experts at the conference agreed that waste textiles are a category that lacks a high-value back-end utilization system, and it is urgent to study new technologies and new fields to break through the bottleneck of industry back-end utilization.

In the realization of high-quality recycling of waste textiles, there have been some innovative practical cases in my country. Professor Wu of East China University of Science and Technology has developed a fiber-plastic composite material, which is made of waste textile fiber-reinforced polyolefin modified materials.

According to Professor Wu, this composite material can be recycled multiple times and can be widely used in industry, agriculture, construction and life, and provides a new way for the recycling of waste fibers.

In addition, the intelligent functional textile composite material innovation team of the School of Textile Science and Engineering of Xi’an Polytechnic University used waste denim and processed it many times to make it into a material similar to a sticky sheet. This material can be used as a thermal insulation material or a sound insulation material. On this basis, the new material produced by technical processing will form a "hard board", which can be used to make furniture and replace wooden floors.

Associate Professor Wei Fan, the team leader, said that smart wearable textiles with real-time monitoring functions such as heart rate, pulse and human motion status will be welcomed by people. Currently, he and his team members have made some smart wearable textiles with piezoelectric fibers.

It is worth noting that innovative "textiles" will increasingly be integrated into all aspects of life. Some materials and clothes with special functions will be the focus of future research and development, such as no-washing, antibacterial and deodorizing, moisture absorption and quick drying.

Data shows that my country has accumulated more and more experience in the resource utilization of waste textiles. Whether it can obtain more innovative clothing raw materials through the resource utilization of waste textiles requires further exploration.

According to rough calculations by the industry, if my country's waste textiles can be recycled, it is equivalent to saving 24 million tons of crude oil and nearly one-third of the cotton planting area each year, which can reduce 80 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Especially in the exploration of promoting high-quality recycling of waste textiles, there is no shortcut, only to move forward.

                                                                Source: Today's Headlines: Environmental Protection Online hbzhan