Sustainability blog

More circulation and less waste in old textiles

As year-end sales like Black Friday and Christmas fill wardrobes, many old textiles end up in the trash. A new guide points the way to a circular economy in which old textiles are a resource.

Every year, tens of thousands of tonnes of clothing are disposed of in Switzerland, often without any further recycling. According to the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN, an estimated 36% of used textiles end up in landfills. At the same time, production and consumption of textiles are growing unchecked. «Our textiles have earned more than incineration», says Andrea Weber-Hansen, head of the Product & Textile Research Group at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. «The aim of our research is to use used textiles at the highest possible level of recycling – be it through reuse, repair or recycling.»

For this purpose, Weber-Hansen’s team has published a new guideline. In it, the researchers present a cascading utilization model that recycles textiles along a waste hierarchy. From the reuse of wearable clothing to the use of fibers for new materials, as much value as possible is retained.

Cooperation with Zurich offices

The guidelines call for a rethink at all levels. However, the focus is particularly on the recycling of used textiles at municipal and cantonal levels. «The key to a circular textile economy is to keep material flows local», explains Weber-Hansen. «This not only creates jobs and reduces CO2 emissions, but also enables transparent, sustainable processes.»

Together with partners such as Entsorgung + Recycling Zürich (ERZ) and the Office for Waste, Water, Energy and Air (AWEL) of the Canton of Zurich, HSLU researchers have developed concepts to strengthen local recycling models and promote innovative recycling technologies.

Recommendations for the future

The guide provides municipalities, cantons and industry with concrete suggestions on how to achieve a circular recycling of used textiles. Some examples:

• More transparency: introduction of a monitoring system that makes data on waste textile flows and qualities available to the stakeholders involved.
• New technologies: automated sorting processes and fiber-to-fiber recycling.
• Awareness-raising: sensitize consumers to use textiles for longer and to recycle them in a targeted manner, for example in repair cafés and second-hand shops. Sharing models are also to be promoted.

A cascading use of waste textiles can only be implemented in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders. In this sense, the HSLU researchers will concretize the recycling in further projects with partner organizations and companies. The City of Zurich, for example, will incorporate the concepts and recommendations developed in the study into its waste clothing recycling strategy.