🔑 The fashion industry is environmentally problematic.

The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global CO2 emissions. In the industry, 69 million tonnes of cotton-blended textiles go to waste each year. These wasted cotton textiles release 220 million tonnes of CO2 emissions accounting for 6% of the fashion industry’s annual CO2 emissions.

It is estimated that tackling this issue would reduce the industry's ecological footprint by 50 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Therefore, an immediate need arises for a solution that encourages the adoption of recycled cotton and provides the necessary incentives to do so.

Root Causes: There’s a lack of economic incentives and recycled cotton is of inferior quality.

1. Recycled cotton tends to be notably more expensive than virgin cotton, which ****deters companies from adopting recycling practices. This price difference is a significant barrier to wider adoption.
2. The mechanical recycling process reduces the staple fiber length, resulting in lower quality—virgin cotton typically has longer staple fibers, around 22-20 mm, while recycled cotton averages only 10 mm. This limits its compatibility with other materials and thus, restricts its use cases.

People Affected: Biodiversity and the Fashion Industry face severe consequences for cotton waste.

<aside> 1️⃣ Fashion Industry Cotton waste represents a substantial untapped opportunity for the industry to optimize resource utilization. Addressing this problem is paramount for reducing waste and minimizing the industry's environmental footprint. Repurposing cotton waste has the potential to significantly enhance resource efficiency. By providing cotton waste to our system, suppliers can potentially eliminate landfill fees, which could amount to savings of over $11.81 billion globally.

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<aside> 2️⃣ Habitats and Biodiversity Cotton waste has a profound impact on surrounding ecosystems and wildlife habitats. Improper disposal of cotton waste results in severe disruption to these habitats. Globally, textiles represent around 7% of the volume of waste in landfills. Every year, they generate 220 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to the emissions produced by 35 million cars on the road for a year. This can have an immediate impact on ecosystems around landfills as well as a long-term impact due to increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration.

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The Status Quo: Cotton is recycled through mechanical and chemical recycling.

Most textile companies have to deal with their cotton waste by selling, donating, or paying a third party to get rid of the excess materials.

Currently, there are two main methods of recycling cotton:

1. Mechanical recycling (most popular): Involves cutting the textiles into small pieces and shredding them into a “fibrous state”. The created material is a mesh of small fibers which can be then re-spun into yarn or used to create non-woven textiles.
   • Mechanical recycling, while widely used, can lead to shorter fiber lengths and may not be suitable for all textile materials, potentially affecting the quality and versatility of the recycled products. These limitations underscore the importance of ongoing innovation in recycling technology to address these drawbacks and enhance the sustainability of textile recycling.
2. Chemical recycling: Involves breaking down the cotton fibers at the chemical level. It is usually done by pouring acid (sulfuric acid, citric acid, hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid, acetic acid, or formic acid) over the textiles, to turn them into a smooth mixture. This is heated to create liquid glucose which can then be used to produce spandex or nylon.
   • Chemical recycling of textiles uses strong acids which can have adverse environmental impacts due to chemical waste and resource-intensive processes. For fabric-to-fabric recycling, chemical recycling does not work for fabrics that are mixtures of cotton and other materials, limiting its use to only pure cotton.

<aside> 💡 Both chemical and mechanical recycling are being used to produce new raw materials for the fashion industry.

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