Nordic textile anatomy database: Composition of garments available in the nordic retail mass market and post-consumer textile waste market

Abstract

Textiles are complex materials made of multiple and blended resources, often assembled in unique configurations imbuing each textile with its own anatomy. These textile anatomies make the identification, separation, sorting, and recycling of post-consumer textiles, especially, difficult. While textile anatomy data is often retrievable for pre- and post-industrial textiles (off-cuts or rejects from manufacturing), it is often difficult to retrieve for textiles which have reached the consumer. The lack of data available on the textile anatomies of pre- and post-consumer textile waste skews predictions and market forecasts for the expected yields, capacities, and qualities of post-consumer textile sorting and recycling activities. This disrupts planning for sorting, removal of findings, and scaling of recycling technologies. To better plan for the innovation needs, market capacity, and policy levers needed to improve the efficiency of sorting and recycling activities, there is an urgent need for data on the unique anatomies of pre- and post-consumer textiles. This is especially important as the EU mandates that all member states must separately collect and treat post-consumer textiles beginning in 2025.

Therefore, this database contains two datasets offering textile anatomies for more than 5000 separate garment samples from the post-industrial-pre consumer retail mass market (RMM) and the Post-Consumer Textile Waste Market (PCTWM). This database contains crucial data on each garment's fibre composition, finding presence, and layer presence. The two datasets are the results of two separate waste composition campaigns conducted in the Nordic Region in 2022: One focused on the textile anatomies of the RMM (4,495 samples) and the other on the PCTWM (1,248 samples). The RMM data was collected by sampling garments across mass market retailers in the Copenhagen municipality of DK during the spring/summer seasons of 2022. The PCTWM data was collected by sampling post-consumer textile waste bales from pre- and post-sorting lines at the SIPTEX sorting facility in Malmo, SE in the winter of 2022. In both datasets, surveys deployed via webapp were utilized to streamline sampling and ensure consistent recording of the fibre blends, number of findings present, and layers present. In the PCTWM dataset additional data is provided on the fibre composition of layers, as well as the placement and type of findings present.

Each dataset in this database can be used by industrial ecologists, economists, and textile engineers to better forecast, map, and analyse the potential treatment of expected post-consumer textiles. Moreover, the methodology and approach to data gathering can be used as a blueprint for future regionalized databases throughout the European Union. The use of this database can be particularly useful to analyse the economic, environmental, and resource impacts of common garments as well as inform textile market analysis, design guidelines, and policy decisions for the treatment of post-consumer textile waste in the circular economy.