Can clothes be recycled?
Photo: Ethan Bodnar
Some of us have probably seen the opportunities in fast fashion stores to recycle our clothes. We can bring some of our old clothes, they get recycled and we can consume new clothing with good conscience, or can we? More newly produced clothes are made of recycled materials. You can find everything from cotton, wool to polyester. Where the polyester might be the most common one. But is it the case that when we hand in our clothes they eventually become new clothes?
Not really.
What happens with the clothes you hand in at fast fashion chains in Sweden is that they are mostly transported to countries like Germany. Even though clothing-recycling stations have entered the scene in Sweden, what is going on there is mostly sorting, not recycling. The initiatives so far have mostly been focusing on finding a more efficient way to sort clothes (since this is today done manually), where clothes that are not suitable for the second hand market are exported.
How much of the clothes sold on the market in Sweden ends up being recycled?
Again, the question is difficult to answer since the answer is simply nothing. In Europe less than 1% of the textiles are being recycled into new clothes. Swedes throw away 7,6 kg per person and year. Some of the clothes are donated to second hand, where they might get a new owner, but sooner or later most of it ends up being burned with the rest of our trash. Which of course is very unfortunate considering how much natural and human resources it takes to create textiles. To reuse clothes is the most environmentally and climate friendly option. However, being burnt for energy is maybe slightly better than ending up at landfills. In the USA 11.3 million tons of the textiles ended up in landfills.
Sweden exports a lot of textiles every year. We simply have too much second hand clothes on the market so some of the clothes being exported for recycling are actually in very good quality. The companies that buy the Swedish second hand clothes are not doing it for the primary reason to recycle, they want to sell them second hand again. Therefore, a lot of the exported clothes are being sold again at the European market.
In other words there is no proper larger scale recycling business established within EU when it comes to clothes. There is a second hand market beyond the second hand market and there is a better alternative than just burning clothes. But the clothes are not recycled into new textiles fibres.
But where do the recycled materials come from that you see in the stores?
Photo: Sigmund
Recycled polyester mostly comes from other plastic materials. It can be ocean trash but it can also be plastic bottles. There have been several discussions regarding if we can make sure that it is not new bottles being produced just to create recycled polyester and regarding if polyester is still an environmentally friendly material. Creating a market for ocean trash is not a bad thing, however the issue remains that we have too many new clothes on the market and too many second hand clothes not being sold.
There are several initiatives and technologies working on improving the recycling possibility of textiles. But, this should be the least resort after the clothes have been reused many times over or remade. Textiles are a very difficult material to recycle since it contains so many different fibres.
Photo: Naja Bertolt Jensen
What we should focus on when creating a sustainable closet is to make the existing materials last. Donate or sell with care when you don’t use it any more. If it’s broken, fix it or reuse it. Be creative about what old textiles can be used for (for cleaning, clothes for dolls and so on).
Do your best not buy into the “recycle-and-buy-new-clothes-of-recycled-materials”, since the practice doesn’t really exist. We hope this post clarified and of course the market is constantly changing and it can be different in different countries. Read up, educate yourself and reuse preloved.
