Products from reclaimed fibre

Technical textiles as a market for products made from reclaimed fibres... 

Depending on product functions, reclaimed fibres can be looked upon as conventional in technical textiles, particularly in nonwovens (mobility textiles which mainly serve to cover up surfaces or to insulate materials, agrotextiles, and geotextiles which are used to protect soil against erosion). In all these cases, reclaimed fibres are used because of low prices, or because they merely cover something up. However, reclaimed fibres are also applied in nonwovens to utihze highly valuable functional components. This concerns fibres which would not be available at a competitive price if made from primary materials, such as... 

After the raw material is recycled, it can be further classified according to the new product stream it enters. These two classifications are OLR and CLR. In OLR, a garment reaches the end of its useful life and the fibre is reclaimed for use in different products, therefore entering into a new product fife cycle (Curran, 2012). This may also be termed downcycling if the new product is of lesser economic value. Similarly, pre-consumer textile offcuts from apparel production may be collected and recycled into fibre for use in other products. 

Pre-consumer waste such as offcuts from the cutting process results in relatively clean and sortable fabrics, as one type of fabric can be reclaimed over a production mn and will be of a uniform colour and fibre type/blend. For this reason, recycled yams that are then returned into the apparel product cycle are more likely to be manufactured using pre-consumer textile waste. This also applies in the case of upcycling whole fabric pieces into new apparel. 

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