The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that by 2025, cities throughout the world will generate 2.2 billion tons of rubbish annually. The textile industry must reduce, reuse, and recycle waste because of the negative effects it has on the economy, the environment, and human health. In a spinning mill, for instance, between 15 and 25 percent of the textile waste from the blending room to winding is recyclable and reusable. Waste raises production costs and has a financial penalty of its own. Additional expenses are paid for the disposal of non-biodegradable materials and useful chemicals in textile mills when the majority of waste is composed of natural fibers and their blends.
Additional difficulties arise in the process of getting rid of synthetic waste, both during manufacturing and after use. Chemical formulations and synthetic materials are the foundation of the technical textile industry. This feature of the industry raises awareness of its carbon footprint and the costs associated with reducing and eliminating waste. Although these pose challenges for the business, they also present chances for the creation of cutting-edge technology for recycling and utilizing post-industrial and post-consumer trash. Waste from the technical and industrial textiles sectors can be processed to open up new markets, enabling the production of new goods and jobs.
Raw materials
The 3Rs—reduce, reuse, and recycle—are crucial instruments for fostering circularity. The cost of the raw materials chosen has an effect on the manufacturing sector’s profitability and can affect the finished product’s pricing by up to 70%. As a result, in manufacturing, the quality of the raw materials must come first. Sorting materials for appropriate reuse and disposal is the first step towards circularity because the textile business uses both natural and manufactured materials.
Purchasing cotton free of contamination is the first step in cutting costs because spinning mills that use natural fibers are more likely to have contaminated raw materials. The textile industry and cotton growers are working to reduce the amount of plastic in cotton bales. India is a major exporter of textile products and a major producer of cotton. Because of its cleanliness, the Indian spinning industry is considering importing cotton from a major supplier, such as the United States, as long as the price is comparable to that of native cotton.
Recovering useable fibers from waste increases the spinning process’s profit. Textile waste from mills can be recovered and used. About 40% of the waste from blowroom and carding, as well as 25% from the flat during the carding process, can be recovered and used as useable fiber, claims Kanthimathinathan Aramvalarthanathan, a textile expert located in Coimbatore, India. Comber noil is frequently utilized as recycled fiber in open-ended yarn spinning, one of the various wastes recovered, and these yarns are used in home textiles like bed linens.
According to Velmurugan Shanmugam, general manager of Jayalakshmi Textiles, a company with 72,000 ring spindles based in Aruppukkottai, “Saw ginned cotton, as is the case with the United States’ cotton industry, has trash less than 1.5 percent, while Indian cotton may have trash of about 3-4 percent, and therefore additional cleaning points are needed.”
Economic advantages
According to Velmurugan Shanmugam, high-quality waste materials, like comber noils and fibers from flat carding process strips, can be easily used to spin coarse yarns that are used to make house textiles. Numerous textile products for the home contain post-industrial waste and repurposed materials. Crucially, the domestic textile industry offers textile exporters like Bangladesh and India significant prospects for export to Europe and the United States.
Product realization and productivity must be the textile industry’s top priorities. According to Velmurugan Shanmugam, “our cotton spinning mill with an average count of 70s Ne can increase its profit by 10 million Indian Rupees with an increase of 1 percent in yarn realization.” The aforementioned facts highlight how crucial waste reduction, productivity growth, and product realization are.
As previously said, unnecessary materials are expensive when used in the production of textiles. Foreign materials that may or may not be reusable must be removed during the production of textiles made from natural fibers. From cotton ginning to textile manufacturing, Coimbatore-based Nestling solutions India Pvt. Ltd. is creating vision-based solutions to separate plastic and other waste from cotton.
According to Chandrasekaran Somasundaram, managing director of Nestling Technologies, “trash that is not discovered in cotton bales sooner translates into several meters in yarns and fabrics costing a fortune for the industry.” The textile industry’s sustainability can be improved by prioritizing waste reduction and rubbish clearance.
Additional advantages
Waste reduction eases the strain on the environment and the issue of landfills. Reusing useful garbage not only reduces waste but also increases economic efficiency. Value-added textiles can be made from textile waste from traditional textile mills. The sweeping waste from textile mills can be turned into bonded mats that can be used as kitchen mats, oil absorbent mats, or gloves to create ecologically friendly technical textile products.
Jayalakshmi Textiles has created recyclable materials that may be used repeatedly by utilizing cotton waste and a natural binder. In order to safeguard human fauna and flora, this is an excellent example of how to handle complicated environmental issues like oil spills and the disposal of wipes and coveralls that are contaminated with harmful chemicals and oil.
Cotton stalks may now be turned into rigid boards thanks to innovative work by the Central Institute of Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT), located in Mumbai, India. In certain nations, burning stalks or tilling them into the ground is commonplace. Since burning contributes to air pollution, the technology created by CIRCOT prevents environmental issues when it occurs.
Technical textiles recycling
Because the advanced textiles business relies on synthetic fibers, recycling costs and environmental impact are higher than in the natural fiber-based sector. The defense textiles business is one of the most significant sub-segments of the technical textiles sector, and governments must frequently invest in the acquisition of flame-resistant fabrics, antiballistics, and other types of personal protective equipment (PPE).
This industry is just beginning to employ recycled materials. General Recycled, a company established in Quebec, is working to alter this situation by recycling flame-resistant meta- and para-aramids to create goods that the energy and oil and gas sectors can utilize.
“Some companies do not see value in recycling,” says Dave Kasper, vice president of sales at General Recycled Ltd., highlighting the prospects for recycling and reusing advanced textiles. Utilizing renewable hydroelectric power, General Recycled’s production facility in Val-des-Sources, Quebec, is carbon neutral. The “closed loop” operating strategy of General Recycled helps large multinational corporations lower their carbon footprints.
The advanced textiles business has a lot of chances to embrace circularity, but it is lagging behind in the recycling and reusing race. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) and standards must be developed in order to reuse personal protective equipment (PPEs), as demonstrated by COVID-19. Although synthetics cannot completely replace them in the realm of modern textiles, efficient methods for reducing, reusing, and recycling must be created. Businesses like General Recycled and Jayalakshmi Textiles are spearheading initiatives to recycle and decrease waste in order to create products with added value.
