China'S Garment Industry Can Take The Road Of "Old Clothes Recycling".

The clothing industry's "old clothes recycling" project has attracted widespread attention in the industry.

It is understood that h&m, a fast fashion brand in Sweden, tried out the 'old clothes recycling' project in Shanghai. The company returned the old clothes to Sweden and gave it to a local recycling company i:co for recycling later.

It is not the first to carry out the "old clothes recycling" project h&m.

Because of the high demand for fabrics, breathable and windproof functions, the use of single fibers is very small. Most of them are synthetic fabrics, and fabrics made of such fabrics are difficult to directly separate. Therefore, landfill or combustion will have an impact on the environment.

A famous outdoor company in the world began to ask customers to send back their tattered clothes, including old clothes, woolen clothes, cotton t-shirts, other polyester and nylon products, in 2005, in exchange for new clothes and become the forerunners of garment enterprises.

The company acknowledges that although the recycling of old polyester clothing has increased the volume of pportation, a detailed comparison shows that compared with the use of non recycled materials, the energy used for pport recycled clothing can still be reduced by 4 times, and the carbon dioxide produced will be reduced by more than 3 times.

In addition, sports brand PUMA also launched clothing recycling activities in stores in Beijing and Shanghai last November.

According to statistics, after recycling each ton of old clothes, it can produce 0.99 tons of non-woven fabrics or 0.99 tons of colored cotton yarn, which is equivalent to saving 1.1 tons of textile raw materials or 0.8 tons of cotton. At the same time, it also saves 35% of the energy produced by the same non-woven fabric and saves 20% of the same cotton yarn.

According to the existing production technology level, spinning a ton of cotton yarn needs 2248 degrees of electricity consumption.

This does not include the production process of cotton yarn and the consumption of upstream industry chain.

Now

95% of the textiles can be recycled, but how to recycle the resources is a more challenging topic.

Data show that about 10% of the old clothes purchased by i:co are in good quality, wearable and sterilized into the recycling market, and 30% to 40% are processed as new materials, such as interior materials for automobiles and building materials, carpet lining materials, stuffed stuffed toys, raw materials for paper making, etc.

There are also some products that have been pformed into equivalent materials, such as rag.

But only 0.3% of these clothes returned to the raw materials of clothing.

It is reported that, according to our current law, old clothing is strictly prohibited from being sold in the domestic market, but exports are not yet restricted. Many manufacturers that recycle old clothes have indicated that the old clothes will be pported to Africa, Southeast Asia and other poverty-stricken areas after disinfection.

In the world, refurbishment and resale is also a legitimate recycling cycle, as long as necessary disinfection, treatment and labeling is "recycled clothes".

Recycled clothing has become the largest volume of merchandise exported to Africa by the United States. The huge industrial chain supports thousands of thousands of recycled garment companies in the United States.

For the Chinese market with an annual output value of 1 trillion and 300 billion as the garment industry, the recycling of old clothes is still a "rich ore" that has not been fully developed per million tons per year.

At present, there are 38 old clothes suppliers in Zhejiang and 26 buyers in China's old clothes online.

In June this year, the price of Wenzhou's old clothes recycling market in summer was 4200 yuan / ton to 4800 yuan / ton.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the United States produced 11 million 340 thousand tons of clothing and household textiles in 2009, and the number will increase to 15 million 870 thousand tons by 2019.

The latest domestic number from China Resources Comprehensive Utilization Association is 26 million tons per year.

In fact, in the United States, the recycling of old clothes has only just begun in the apparel industry. Some people call it "the first time in history". The United States is trying to mobilize all sectors of the garment industry and all the links in the chain to recycle, including consumers, manufacturers, retailers, charities and recycling agencies.