Project
Circularity in textile industry: what’s in our wardrobes
The textile industry is one of the most polluting industries. Currently, only 30-35% of all textile waste is reused or recycled. In order to get more insight in textile reuse and recycling, researchers from Wageningen University & Research work together to define pathways for a more supportive recycling system that takes into account the technological, safety, and societal perspectives, including both consumers and policies.
Project description
It is important to have a good overview of the current status of the textile reuse and recycling systems in the Netherlands. This overview is typically made using a so-called Material Flow Analysis (MFA) in which all material flows and their quantities are identified. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient data available to fully quantify all textile material flows.
Results
In this project, we used a combination of consumer studies and citizen science to fill these data gaps. Consumer studies were used to gain deeper insights in consumer behaviour regarding textile purchases and disposal. Citizen science was used to get better insights in the Dutch wardrobe. All participants were asked to make a representative selection of their wardrobe and to measure the weight and write down the material composition according to the label of each item. By combining these findings with traditional research methods (e.g. waste characterisation), a detailed MFA for the Dutch textile recycling industry could be defined.