Contaminant Investigation and Pre-Processing Opportunities for Textile-To-Textile Recycling

Millions of metric tons of textiles are landfilled or incinerated each year in the United States, with less than 1% of textiles recycled into new clothing or fabrics. To counter this trend, a growing number of companies and researchers are exploring how a circular economy can be applied to support textile-to-textile recycling. A significant barrier they face comes down to quickly and efficiently extracting pure feedstock material from post-consumer garments that feature a mix of natural and synthetic fibers. Textile recyclers prefer pure feedstocks, as working with mixed sources typically means lower throughput, higher risk of equipment failure, and diminished business margins. To facilitate a circular economy for textiles, methods, and technologies are needed that can efficiently separate out materials and contaminants from end-of-life textiles to increase the flow of pure feedstocks to recyclers. This paper summarizes findings from interviews with a cross section of textile recyclers and from a review of literature to define basic feedstock requirements. In addition to our qualitative research, we deconstruct a bale of post-consumer textiles and analyze them using computer-vision imaging, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and machine learning. The resulting data are used to set system-level design inputs for an automated contaminant removal system to process post-consumer clothing into appropriate feedstocks for recycling. To set the system's levels for automated real-time near-infrared analysis, we identify the minimum percentage of primary material that any single garment in a load of used clothing must contain for the average of the full output stream to meet the target purity levels of recyclers. The envisioned automated system can also address undesirable trace materials that might contaminate the processed stream by using imaging cameras coupled with artificial intelligence to identify sections of clothing for de-trimming. Proof-of-concept machine learning algorithms are evaluated to locate and identify trims or garment areas with hidden contaminant materials. Integrating these methods into automated textile cutting systems can provide a cost-effective means for increasing feedstock purity from used clothing, which can advance circularity for textiles by helping recyclers to reach production volumes and quality targets that were not possible solely with manual dismantling operations.