Page 52 - baseline
P. 52
Recycling Practices cloth, bath mats, industry wipes, or oil-absorbent
mats, etc.
l Currently, recycled yarn has limited use only in
l During the visit to Panipat, one of India’s major
knitted and denim fabric at present.
recycling centres, it was seen that obsolete
l Birla Cellulose has developed a chemical recycling
technologies are being used for recycling and
process out of pre-consumer cotton waste for
re-production processes.
creating GRS certified liva reviva, a recycled
l Clothes are sorted by colour and material, while the
viscose fibre.
fibres are shredded and ripped down via
unravelling, grinding, defibration, and cutting.
Since the fibres are shortened, they become
Circularity focal points: Technology
weaker and damaged during the sorting process.
upgradation, traceability
Its functionality and quality degrade, forcing
producers to add virgin and high-quality fibres.
l Open-ended recycled yarns with a Ne count of Open-end Spinning
0s-30s are prevalent in the industry, whereas only a
few recyclers produce ring-spun recycled yarns.
It was discovered that open-end spinning industries are
l Currently, GRS certification offers access to the
Figure 30: Cutting waste segregation Figure 31: Sorting of medium size cut waste located in major recycling hubs of India and source pre-
formal economy for recycled textiles. The existing
and post-consumer waste through waste collectors/
technological barrier permits 30% recycled fibres
middlemen spread across different clusters of India.
to be substituted for natural fibres. Impurities in the
input material further diminish the grade of recycled
Natural fibres such as cotton fabrics are primarily
fibres.
recovered through mechanical recycling and are spun
l Due to mechanical recycling limitations, fiber
into coarser yarn using open-end spinning.
characteristics deteriorate, however better
recycling value can be perceived from knitted (100
As the bales are cut open, the mutilated garments are
% cotton solid colors) as compared to woven.
sorted colour-wise and stripped of all accessories,
l The recycled yarn is down cycled based on their
such as labels, buttons, zippers, press studs, leather
coarseness and used in manufacturing of products
such as insulating materials, industrial cleaning
Figure 34: OE spinning PFD
Figure 32: Large size cut pieces Figure 33: Shredded cut waste transportation
its quality, degree of usage, physical condition, and
the most common of which are donation drives and
inclusion of accessories such as buttons, emblems,
brand-specific take-back programmes.
labels, etc. Usually, most artificial recycled fibres
come from sources other than clothing, such as PET
Children and people needing clothing in shelter
bottles and pre-consumer waste.
homes use the clothing donated by the NGOs, and
some clothing goes for rehabilitation and relief work
in regions affected by natural disasters. Circularity focal points: Awareness, Advocacy,
Traceability
The clothing’s recycling potential is influenced by
1. Raw Material 2. Disassembly 3. Sorting
52 Baseline Assessment Report Baseline Assessment Report 53
