Projects in locations ranging from Pennsylvania to Taiwan are targeting landfill diversion options for discarded clothing and fabric.
Research and investments are being made in several parts of the world to use mechanical recycling processes to turn discarded clothing and fabric into new products.
Taipei, Taiwan-based SAYA (and its parent company Nan Ya Plastics) refers to itself as “the world’s largest manufacturer of recycled PET, repurposing over 75 billion bottles every year.” Now, under the SAYA brand, the firm says it is engaging in research and development (R&D) efforts “to focus on the critical recycling and sustainability issues that face the textile and garment industry and redefine what’s possible in renewal.”
The company says it has been seeking textile “scrap, cutting waste, overstock fabric and soon, used garments” to convert into new products via some of its newly developed methods.
SAYA says its RSCUW process “reduces waste by 30 percent per yard by recycling cutting scraps and overstock rolls of fabric, which has historically ended up in landfills or is stored indefinitely in warehouses.”
Its RSCUW RAW product “is made from recycled fabric cutting scrap and colored PET bottles retaining their original color. The resulting knit or woven fabric has a unique heathered effect in shades from gray to nearly black.”
In development is the Garma process, which SAYA says will be available in late 2021. “This complex recycling process of used post-consumer garments will streamline the garment recycling by offering turnkey retail to fiber solutions to select brand partners.”
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