Materials News An iconic solution in recycling garments In response, the fashion industry has risen up to the occasion by developing and adopting circular solutions, such as garment to garment recycling and use of fibres from recycled plastics, to achieve the so-called new textile economy, where new materials that are recyclable and made for durable clothing are adopted to ultimately help in reducing pollution. Swedish fast fashion company H&M, which in 2013 became the first fashion retailer to roll out a global garment collecting programme, has recently offered a garment-to-garment recycling system, Looop, for its customers in Sweden to transform unwanted garments into new fashion items for a fee. Looop is created by the non-profit H&M Foundation, together with research partner HKRITA (The Hong Kong
H&M rolled out a garment-to-garment recycling system, Looop, to transform unwanted garments into new fashion items
Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel) and Hong Kong-based yarn spinner Novetex Textiles. The recycling service, which debuted in one of H&M's stores in Stockholm in October, gives customers an up-close view of the container-sized machine that dissembles and assembles old garments into new ones. The process involves cleaning the garments, shredding them into fibres and spinning it into new yarn, which is then knitted into new fashion products. Some sustainably sourced virgin materials might be added during the process, H&M explained. Because the system uses no water and no chemicals, it has a significantly lower environmental impact than when producing garments from scratch. By 2030, the company is set to making all its materials either recyclable or sourced in a more sustainable way. Discarded bottles spun into new life Every minute, 1 million plastic drinking bottles are bought, and about the same amount will be discarded after use, according to UNEP. Recovering billions of waste bottles is a feat taken up by US-headquartered synthetic yarns firm Unifi, which has set a goal of transforming 30 billion bottles by 2022. It is on track to that goal as it has already transformed more than 20 billion PET bottles to date via its Repreve platform of recycled performance fibres. This milestone, according to Unifi, is equi valent to di verting from landfills 156 plastic bottles per each of the estimated 128 million US households and transforming these into Repreve fibres to make fabrics for apparel, upholstery, automotive and industrial applications. The firm says more than 50 0 global brand and textile partners are already adopting Repreve fibres.