Fibre composition of donated post-consumer clothing in the UK

Abstract

At the end of life, post-consumer clothing in the UK either enters the municipal solid waste stream or is collected by way of an extensive network of clothing banks, charity shops and doorstep collections for recycling or reuse. This study reports the fibre/polymer composition of a large sample (n=34 635) of post-consumer clothing collected by The Salvation Army, one of the largest used clothing supply chain operators in the UK. The results revealed that 36·2% of the clothing items were of heterogeneous polymer composition, consisting of a blend or mixture of two or more fibre components; however, the largest fraction was composed of a single fibre type (excluding accessories and sewing threads). Cotton accounted for 54·7% of the total collected clothing and 22·6% was composed of polyester. There were no large geographical or collection source variations in terms of fibre compositions. A minimum economic recyclability index was approximated based on a potential value of fibre recyclate in post-consumer clothing that is currently directed to landfill.

A review: can waste wool keratin be regenerated as a novel textile fibre via the reduction method?

“…In general, the material composition of the collected post-consumer items reflects the relative durability, frequency of use, serviceability, and perceived value of different fashion textiles (Ward et al, 2013). Wool makes up a small Russell et al (2016) and Wiedemann et al (2020).…”

“…amount of the production market (Ward et al, 2013), but because of wool garments have a generally high lifespan and retain relatively good quality than other fibres that are more commonly used for clothing manufacture, wool material makes up a relatively small percentage ($5%) of donated post-consumer clothing (Russell et al, 2016). However, wool is still used in many industries.…”

“…Post-consumer wool may not be entering relevant recycling streams in volumes large enough to be economically feasible due to issues with sorting and separating different fibre types (Ravasio & Rodewald, 2018). Both a solid infrastructure for collection and sorting of post-consumer waste and effective disassembly of garments is important prior to the stages of actual recycling (Ward et al, 2013). One important issue is that some garments contain blends of fibres.…”

Editorial

“…The third paper (Ward et al, 2013) is an interesting approach to the problems associated with management of donated postconsumer clothing and the recycling of fibre. The authors highlight the fact that the way in which garments are constructed and the lack of cost-effective disassembly tools and recycling processes means that recycling from these sources is challenging.…”