Logistics can play an important role in making the garment industry, the world's second biggest polluter, more circular. Innovation institute VIL has investigated with what logistics can boost circularity in the textile sector.
The sector's biggest polluters are the high water consumption during the production of raw materials and the use of large amounts of polluting chemicals (e.g. during the dyeing of fabrics). Moreover, many garments are never sold and used clothes usually do not get a second life.
The government and textile sector have become more aware of this in recent years and several companies are launching circular initiatives. According to VIL, these initiatives should also be supported and encouraged logistically.
Cilotex
In the Cilotex (Circular Logistics for the Textile Industry) project, VIL has been investigating with involved companies and logistics service providers which new business models can be built out in recent years. The business models are based on value added logistics, aimed at more effective collection of used clothing. VIL: "Where this results in a successful circular economy, it can generate additional commercial benefits for both textile producers and retail. After all, the otherwise lost clothing gains new commercial value from reuse or recycling."
Chemical recycling
VIL's pilot project used chemical recycling to make a new t-shirt from 30 kilos of old t-shirts. Chemical recycling is relatively new and the only technology by which 'fibre-to-fibre' recycling can be achieved without loss of quality. It is capable of removing all unwanted components, such as dyes and catalysts.
Digital passport garments
For textile recycling to be effective, information on the composition and condition of textiles must be available to all parties in the chain, consumers as well as the collection point and sorting centre must be able to retrieve the information easily. VIL has therefore introduced a digital passport for garments. The passport describes the product composition and information on use, maintenance, repair and recycling. Sam Elinck, Project Coordinator at De Kringwinkel Antwerpen collaborated on the pilot project: "Within the recycling sector there are already several research projects running for this purpose. The difficulty remains knowing the correct composition of textiles. Currently, this information is only on the washing label, but this is impossible to use as a basis in sorting centres. We believe that with digital passports, talked about within the VIL project, we will get the right information to process garments more efficiently."
Legal framework
VIL hopes for a legal framework in Belgium so that most clothing no longer ends up in incinerators. This is not necessarily future music, says project leader Jan Merckx. "The various ingredients are already in place such as product passports, transparent chains, a harmonised collection and sorting system."
