Blended materials are difficult to recycle. 99% of the over 113 million tons of textiles produced today ends up burned or landfilled. A new method involves soaking the textiles in a concentrated solution of 43% hydrochloric acid for 1 to 4 days at room temperature while being stirred. The cotton breaks down into its building block molecule, glucose, usable then to make renewable plastic. Left behind in the reactor is the intact polyester part of the fabric which can be broken down into its molecular building block and reformed into the polyester, creating a closed-loop recycling process.
www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/02/large-scale-recycling-of-modern-textiles-is-now-in-sight/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=large-scale-recycling-of-modern-textiles-is-now-in-sight