How To Regenerate 40 Million Old Clothes Every Year On Idle Fish?

Huang Wanjuan, a girl in Guangzhou, has not thought about it. One day, she will build some kind of connection with a recycled textile factory in Shanwei, which is 300 kilometers away from the old clothes that she can't plug in.

For her, it was a ceremonial farewell to deliver a bag of 10 kilograms of old clothes to the hands of the recyclers.

In the next 30 hours, after sorting, pportation, crushing, opening and spinning, the old clothes that accompanied her through her youth opened the door to the new world.

With the popularity of recycling economy and so on, nowadays, people like Huang Wanjuan have chosen online recycling.

According to a recent data released by the new lifestyle community leisure fish, since its launch of its old clothes recycling business last March, it has attracted more than 1 million users to participate. Over 10 thousand tons and about 40 million old clothes have been scientifically reused.

But how should we define the concept of "scientific recovery"?

What kind of view game does this kind of business recovery mode experience in the process of gaining public understanding?

An industry insider said in an interview that "old clothes recycling can not simply be equated with offering love, but rather needs to be put into the recycling of commercial power and social resources."

A resident uses the function of online clothing recycling of idle fish, sending orders.

Your old clothes may play a role in the greenhouses.

Starting from Guangzhou Baiyun Airport and driving for an hour or so, you can reach an old clothes recycling company located in Huadu District.

On the wall of the warehouse, there is a propaganda slogan, "let every spare part of fabric be used". In the warehouse, more than 20 workers are skilled in manual sorting.

The old clothes retrieved from all over the world are placed in different recycling boxes according to the color and the old and new degrees, and the new "fate" of the old clothes is also launched.

Sorting is the first step in reusing waste clothes.

Factory leader Chen Wei (pseudonym) introduced, every day, nearly 10 tons of waste textiles here waiting for treatment.

"Clothing color is one of the ways to distinguish potential uses of old clothes.

After the process of crushing, opening cotton and spraying flame retardants, the products can be made into products such as heat insulation quilts, automobile noise insulation cotton products and so on. Light colored and pure colored clothing will be pported to downstream factories of our cooperation to make regenerated yarns and other raw materials.

But Chen Wei said frankly that what he did was not a public good, nor a charity, but a link in the commercial recovery link.

From the pportation of clothing to the reprocessing and other processes, the input of commercial power is needed.

For example, the recruitment of workers, the purchase of reprocessing equipment and so on, the old clothes recycling and traditional understanding of public donations is not the same thing, it relies on a more complete system. "

Chen Wei said.

The factory is 300 kilometers away, and in a recycled textile enterprise in Shanwei, Chen Wei's words are displayed in a more realistic way: the carding machine and hundreds of spinning machines on the 7 production lines are keeping high strength, and the workers are shuttling between machines to ensure that they run smoothly.

Compared with the general textile factories, the biggest difference is that all the raw materials come from recycled second-hand clothes.

Fig. 3 the machine opening the line is opening cotton, loosening old clothes and fabrics.

After the process of clothing breaking, opening, carding, drawing and so on, the regenerated yarn comes out of the spindle at the top of the spinning machine.

And these yarns are also the starting point of many recycled products, aprons, pen bags, environmental protection bags, labor protection gloves......

An office in the textile factory shows many commercial possibilities after the old clothes are recovered scientifically.

The old clothes you understand may be wrong.

Chen Wei's view of the beauty of commercial power is the dispute over the return of old clothes in recent years.

On social media, the topic "where did you donate your old clothes" often aroused heated debate, and even ignited a lot of people's anger.

"The focus of the problem is on the word" donation ". Many people will raise objections that the old clothes that I have voluntarily put out are to give love to the children in the mountain area, and why have they been put into commercial use?

Commentaries on the recovery of the fish and old clothes, Yao commented.

With the improvement of the economic situation, most of the remote areas in China are not willing to accept second-hand goods such as old clothes. If we insist on donations, we will also require new clothes seven or 80% in principle.

"At the moment, we haven't seen much of the standard old clothes."

Chen Wei and other industry insiders said, "many times, people donate some clothes to be thrown away, and there are plenty of clothes that are not suitable for donation."

In addition, old clothes need to be sorted, sterilized, cleaned, packaged, pported and distributed after donation.

"If we roughly calculate an account, an old garment from the warehouse to the two donation, the processing cost plus pportation cost is about 12 yuan -15 yuan, and this money is usually unpaid, which is also the reason why it is becoming more and more difficult to donate the old clothes."

In a factory in Shanwei, the recovered old clothes are processed into regenerated yarns.

According to the analysis of the industry, from the pportation of clothing to the purchase of this kind of reprocessing equipment, the input of commercial power is needed.

Despite the coexistence of recognition and controversy, there has been a lot of exploration in the domestic way of carrying out "goodwill" by means of business.

For example, in 2011, Shanghai launched the "million families low carbon row" activity. Recycling enterprises can reproduce, sell or export under different conditions of old clothes.

In 2016, the municipal donation center of Shenzhen Civil Affairs Bureau explored the form of bidding and cooperation with qualified renewable enterprises, and realized the effective utilization of recycled clothing through the "recycling + regeneration" replacement mode.

"To maximize the utilization of idle resources, I think this is a common recognition of all those involved in the recycling of old clothes.

What we are talking about is a more reasonable way than throwing away the trash cans. "

The expression of Yao.

How big is the space for China's old clothes recycling in the future?

According to the reckoning of idle fish, in China, nearly 1 million 600 thousand tons of old clothes are thrown into trash cans each year, and the recycling rate is less than 1%.

The international recycling Bureau (BIR) has previously estimated that "every reasonable use of 1 kilograms of waste textiles can reduce 3.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, save 6000 liters of water, reduce the use of 0.3 kg of fertilizer and 0.2 kilograms of pesticides."

If the old clothes are used as garbage, if they are burned, they will consume a lot of pollutants, such as coal and electricity, including carbon dioxide and ashes after burning.

If the landfill is handled roughly, it will not only occupy the land, but also pollute the soil and water.

In order to understand the green way of life and understand it for more people, no matter the idle trading platform or the clothing industry business, they spare no effort to play the role of "advocate".

In March of last year, leisure fish went to the old clothes recycling area.

As a feedback to participants, each recycled old clothes can get 790g energy in the ant forest.

According to the leisure fish, the green energy accumulated by 500 tons of old clothes can protect the 100 thousand square meters of Guan Ba nature reserve.

In other business or brand initiated recovery, users will also get different forms of "encouragement" accordingly.

For example, fashion brand H&M launched the old clothes recycling plan in 2013.

A total of 2 single product 15% off coupons can be obtained by donating a bag of old clothes in stores around the world.

It has been pointed out that the sustainable development of old clothes recycling depends on the development of a more comprehensive recycling industry on the one hand, and on the other hand it is a further enlightenment to public awareness.

The emergence of idle economic platforms such as leisure fish connects the upstream and downstream industries of the old clothes recycling industry, so that more people are involved in the green recyclable lifestyle.

Fig. 5 environmental protection bag made from recycled materials

Environmentally friendly bags made from recycled materials

In the old clothes recycling factory in Huadu, there is a school bus still parked on the square except for clothes and vehicles.

On the day when Huang Wanjuan's old clothes were sent, a teacher in an experimental primary school in Huadu District was organizing students to visit and take pictures in the warehouse.

In addition to ensuring the daily operation of the company, Chen Wei, the head of the factory, often receives such social practices.

"School students and public welfare organizations often come to understand the regeneration process of waste clothes.

I think this is a certain degree of public acceptance of the mode of commercial recovery.

We have a strong desire to know what the processing of idle resources is like, which is a good start.