Photo from The Or Foundation, who are leading beach clean-up efforts while running these discarded textiles through a sequence of biological break-down efforts.
Many material types, like acrylic, cannot be recycled at all.
The next evolution of the circular economy will be built on materials that are designed to be food for decomposers, nature’s “helpers” (detritivores: fungi and enzymes), so that they can be integrated into nature’s living network. The next generation of materials will be made from renewable or sequestered carbon, without persistent chemistries both from and for the natural world. When their time is up, they will become inputs to feed new cycles of manufacturing; and when they escape into the environment they will not accumulate.
The average piece of synthetic clothing sheds more than 700,000 plastic particles in its lifetime.
A material output like cellulose has multiple applications, across many sectors. The more a material can be usable to diverse users, the more likely it will not become waste.
Just as multiple chemicals and materials go into clothes, multiple processes are needed to break those chemicals and materials apart. Think of it as a reverse assembly line: just as nature relies on a diverse community of decomposers working collectively in parallel or sequentially, so too will industry need to create a sequence of technologies to maximize the value of waste materials. Complexity here is analogous to multiple “predator-prey” relationships found in natural ecosystems (see The Ecology of Human Infrastructure, p.28). When pieces and players in a system can effectively move around, it is ultimately more resilient to disturbances. Natural cycles are never completely closed loops.
Today’s brands champion durability as part of their strategy towards sustainability. While it makes sense that fewer resources are used when things last longer, our consumption habits and toxic production methods discredit any claims to sustainability. Nature on the other hand, is able to create durable and highly functional materials that are also biodegradable. The key feature that unites all high-performance materials in nature—and that separates them from the man-made polymers that don’t degrade—is that nature starts from digestible components then layers and stabilizes them to create function. Read more about nature’s models for biodegradability and durability without toxicity, and the role that enzymes play.
Bones are stable in our bodies, as are antlers, but degrade in the low pH of soil. Since so-called “infinitely recyclable” synthetic polymers last for only 10 or so cycles (and most plastics for only two to three cycles) even a long-lasting synthetic polymer must be designed to return safely to the soil, either slowly, like wood, or in response to a chemical switch, like bone and antlers.
There are nine such boundaries —like climate change and how much free nitrogen is circulating —and one of them is Novel Entities meaning things that Earth does not recognize. This is the category for the likes of microplastic fibers and PFCs (found on Teflon pans and raincoats) and it is off the charts. The reason? They are forever chemicals that do not break down and are so significant that an era in our planet’s existence has now been named after mankind’s altering of the biosphere: the anthropocene.
Source: stockholmresilience.org
Materials and products that are unfamiliar to nature predominate the textile industry. The scope and scale of this industry threatens to overwhelm planetary boundaries. Taking a biomimetic frame to the issues leads to possible end-of-life solutions starting with making materials and products that are familiar (aka compatible) with natural systems. Fundamental to this are materials that can biodegrade and are of low toxicity.
Learn more about guidance for the industry on next generation fibers: Biodegradation of Textile Fabrics Info-sheets #1: Understanding Biodegradation & Textiles, #2: Biodegradation and Toxicity of Natural & Manmade Cellulosic Textiles, and #3: Biodegradation and Toxicity of Synthetic Textiles, How Nature Transforms Materials, and Estimating the Biodegradability of Chemicals.
In our pilot in Rotterdam, Netherlands, collection partner Erdotex pays about $400,000 annually to dispose of the bottom 10% fraction of waste that it cannot sell (recycle, downcycle). But the day is coming soon when externalities will be factored into this disposal cost and it won’t be so cheap: GHG emission caps, government vetoing new incinerators and landfills, EPR, and 16 African countries banding together to prohibit second-hand clothes from being imported.
Per the point above, most chemical recycling efforts have been focused on pure waste streams – 80-90% cotton or polyester – and the blends are first separated (eg: Carbios, etc) before material recovery can occur. The new industry promise is for 70% of all textiles to be recycled—yet the current reality is between 2-5%, while another 10-15% is downcycled into shoddy or stuffing. The bulk of mechanical and chemical recycling solutions address PET or cellulosics, tolerating up to 5% of non-target fiber fractions, such as elastane.
Source: mckinsey.com
Mayumi, K. Nicholas Georgescu‐Roegen: His Bioeconomics Approach to Development and Change. Development and Change, 2009: 40(6), 1235-1254.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. The entropy law and the economic process, 1971. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. Energy and economic myths. Southern economic journal, 1975: 347-381.
The Laudes Foundation has provided catalytic funding for this ambitious project.
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