What is the way out for recycling waste textiles?
Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “14th Five-Year Plan for Circular Economy Development” (hereinafter referred to as the “Plan”). The “Plan” points out that resource recycling has become an important way to ensure my country’s resource security. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, we will vigorously develop a circular economy, promote resource conservation and intensive utilization, and build a resource recycling industry system and a waste material recycling system.
“The Plan will provide development space for the waste textile (hereinafter referred to as waste textile) reuse industry.” Yang Yinghong, executive director of Shanghai Yuanyuan Industrial Co., Ltd., said, “Generally, the discarded textiles are divided into old textiles and There are two major categories of waste textiles. Old textiles are clothing and home textiles that have been eliminated after daily consumption. They can maintain their original form and extend their service life. Waste textiles can only be used as raw materials, but their utilization rate is limited due to various constraints. Less than 20%, most of them are mainly treated by incineration, landfill and other treatment methods, which cause great pollution to the environment. Therefore, improving the recycling of waste textiles has become the focus of the industry during the ’14th Five-Year Plan’ period.”
The waste textile utilization rate reaches 60%, and carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by 25.92 million tons
According to data provided by the China Textile Industry Federation, my country’s textile industry consumed 49.7 million tons of textile raw materials in 2016, accounting for the total consumption of global textile raw materials. It accounted for 48% of the volume, 52% in 2017, and about 55% in 2018, ranking first in the world.
Yang Yinghong pointed out based on calculations: “In the production and processing link, the annual output of textile scraps is about 2 million tons based on 4%, and the process of processing textiles into consumer goods is about 3 million tons based on 6%. In addition, , in the consumption stage, special survey data organized by enterprises show that including uniforms for civil servants, security guards, students, etc., the clothes eliminated every year in the country (waste textiles are mainly waste clothes) may exceed 10 million tons, of which about 1/ 3 become old textiles, which can maintain their original form and extend their service life, and the remaining 2/3, about 6.66 million tons, become waste textiles. The total amount of waste textiles available for use every year is nearly 12 million tons.”
In 2017, 14 departments including the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Notice on Issuance of Circular Development Leading Actions”, which clearly requires promoting the recycling and upgrading of renewable resources and promoting waste textilesResource utilization and establish a hierarchical utilization mechanism for waste textiles. Enterprises and industries are encouraged to actively recycle waste textiles for secondary use.
Public data shows that in 2018, my country’s comprehensive utilization of waste textiles was about 3.8 million tons, with a comprehensive utilization rate of about 19%. Although the utilization rate of waste textiles has increased, there is still a lot of room for development.
Zhao Guoliang, a professor at the China Institute of Fashion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, said: “If waste textiles cannot be fully utilized, on the one hand, it will cause a waste of natural fibers such as cotton, wool, silk, and hemp, as well as synthetic fibers based on petroleum. As well as energy waste in spinning, dyeing and finishing processes; on the other hand, because chemical fibers are difficult to degrade in nature, such as landfilling and other methods will cause long-term pollution to the environment. Therefore, the utilization of waste textiles is not only a resource The issue of recycling is also a major environmental issue.”
According to research data from a research institute at the University of Copenhagen, for every kilogram of waste textile used, carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by 3.6 kilograms.
Yang Yinghong said that if 12 million tons of waste textiles are generated every year and the comprehensive utilization rate reaches 60% (that is, the utilization volume is 7.2 million tons), then 25.92 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced. If a company uses 60,000 tons of waste textiles every year, it is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 216,000 tons, reduce water use by 260,000 tons, and reduce the use of fertilizers by 18,000 tons, pesticides by 12,000 tons, and chemical dyes by 480 tons.
Companies at the end of the industrial chain are uneven, and waste textiles are mostly used for dimensionality reduction
From the perspective of energy conservation and carbon reduction, it is of great significance to improve the resource utilization and harmlessness of waste textiles and promote the efficient use of waste textiles. However, due to technical and cost limitations, efficient utilization of waste textiles is still a difficult problem.
“The recycling methods of waste textiles in my country mainly rely on recycling by small traders and centralized recycling at designated points in communities. The quality of practitioners engaged in waste textile recycling varies, and most of them are jointly operated by family members. They are not only unlicensed operations, but also have no achievements. The ability to process and produce raw materials in the form of waste textiles will be diverted to the corresponding production and processing enterprises after recycling.” Yang Yinghong pointed out the problems existing in the waste textile industry chain from the recycling side.
“Under the existing economic and technical conditions for waste textile disposal, many companies simply classify and select the usable second-hand clothes and raw materials for use, and the remaining parts become ‘black materials’ and ‘ The lowest level of waste such as firewood. This part of the waste should be treated as harmless diversion. But it is currently known that some waste textiles are disposed of as dry garbage and incinerated, and some of them flow to unknown directions.” Yang Yinghong said.
Zhao Guoliang also said that immature production, processing and utilization technology has led to serious waste of waste textiles. He said: “Although my country’s waste textile recycling has a long history, there have always been problems such as small scale, backward technology and low added value of products. Some processing benefits��Companies use low-value-added methods that are valuable from a material perspective, and the utilization ratio is also particularly low. ”
“The most ideal state is to classify waste textiles and use them according to different levels to ensure the recycling rate and high-value utilization of waste textiles.” Zhao Guoliang pointed out, “Nowadays, waste textiles are mostly blended products, which may contain For high-value reuse of various fibers of different types and proportions, they need to be separated according to their components, and then regenerated and utilized according to the different components. At present, the cost of automated sorting equipment is still relatively high, and many small and medium-sized enterprises do not carry out grading. Next, physical methods are used to directly open the waste textiles into short fiber batting. In fact, some of the waste textiles entering the opening factory are of better quality and have longer fibers, which is completely acceptable. It is decomposed into some relatively thick yarns through technology, and then continues to be used as raw material for textiles. However, most companies at the end of the industrial chain do not have the corresponding technology and equipment, and waste textiles are not only used in dimensionality reduction, but also the utilization rate is not high. ”
To improve the utilization rate of waste textiles and reduce waste, efforts need to be made from multiple aspects
“In the past ten years, especially after the establishment of the Waste Textile Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance in 2012, the technical level related to waste textile recycling in my country has been significantly improved.” Zhao Guoliang said that with the development of the circular economy, relevant standards will also continue to Complete.
It is understood that the current national standards for waste textiles include the “Classification and Code of Waste Textiles” and “Technical Specifications for Recycling of Waste Textiles” that have been implemented in 2020, as well as the “Technical Specifications for Recycling of Waste Textiles” that will be officially implemented on October 1 this year. These specifications provide clear guidance and specifications to enterprises in the entire industrial chain in terms of classification, recovery, and reuse of waste textiles.
Taking the “Technical Specifications for Recycling of Waste Textiles” as an example, in order to reduce the serious waste of waste textile enterprises, the specification states that the comprehensive utilization rate of waste textiles should be greater than 75%. The specification also makes relevant provisions in three aspects: pre-processing, recycling and environmental protection of waste textiles.
Zhao Guoliang is one of the drafters of the above three national standards. He said that although the current three standards are recommended standards, they have a great guiding role for relevant enterprises. In the future, regulations will continue to improve, and companies need to increase the annual processing volume and comprehensive utilization rate of waste textiles. Some companies with low technical levels and unable to meet the requirements will be forced to exit, and the utilization rate of waste textiles will also increase.
“Some previously released documents lacked specific implementation measures. The development of the waste textile recycling industry is in a state of insufficient top-level attention, unsmooth management systems, and disordered and irregular industry development.” Yang Yinghong said, “” The Plan proposes that during the ’14th Five-Year Plan’ period, the development of the circular economy will be promoted through policy guarantees, including improving circular economy laws and regulations, improving the statistical evaluation system of the circular economy, strengthening fiscal and taxation financial policy support, and strengthening industry supervision. We look forward to more in the future. More specific policies and measures will be implemented to support waste textile recycling enterprises and related enterprises that use waste textile raw materials for production.”
It is understood that Dingyuan (Hangzhou) Textile Technology Co., Ltd., which was designated by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as the construction unit of the “Major Demonstration Project for Recycling of Textile Resources”, currently solves the problem through five laboratories of physics, chemistry, microbiology, sound absorption, and flame retardancy. Various technical issues in the waste textile recycling process will be realized in the future with the advancement of technology research and development, and commercial applications will also be realized. “Then, at the source of waste textiles, in addition to establishing an orderly and clear-flow recycling and resource utilization model of waste textiles and increasing the proportion of high-value utilization of waste textiles, residents must also increase their awareness of classifying waste textiles separately. , after all, only by focusing on multiple aspects to improve the utilization rate of waste textiles can the effect be better.” Yang Yinghong said.
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