GlobalData company analytics data shows a rise in the demand for more sustainable apparel products. The 4-year study by the Renewal Workshop revealed that around 82% of textile and garment waste can be reused and resold.
Beth Wright, Apparel Correspondent for GlobalData, has said that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused in increase in responsible consumers particularly amongst the millennial and Gen Z. This generation is more and more turning their back against fast fashion and favoring more circular and sustainable products designed with minimum waste and from recycled materials.
“Fashion firms looking to build back better from the pandemic and engage with this new breed of consumers must tap into what is traditionally considered textile waste as a new raw material,” Beth Wright further added.
Furthermore, a report issued by the Textile Exchange’s Accelerating Circularity project also says that the post-industrial and post-consumer materials, the raw materials for textile-to-textile recycling, are the logical industry feedback.
The 4-year study by the Renewal Workshop revealed that around 82% of textile and garment waste can be reused and resold.
These materials can decrease the dependency on virgin material and decrease the usage of water, energy and chemicals.
Sweden is one of the foremost countries in terms of innovation as it is home to the Sysav Group, which is claimed to be the world’s first automated sorting plant for post-consumer textiles on an industrial scale. It features a sorting capacity of around 24,000 tons of textiles annually.
Also, Sysav Group recently played host to the first retail model of the garment-to-garment recycling system pioneered by the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA).
The system is launched in one of H&M’s Drottninggatan stores in Stockholm, which allows the consumers to see their old garments being converted into the new one.
