The world’s love for clothing isn’t slowing down—and neither are its environmental costs.
But exciting new research from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln could finally offer a way to make fashion greener.
Researcher Yiqi Yang has developed the first successful fiber-to-fiber recycling technology that can remove dyes, separate different fiber blends, and create high-quality new fibers from old textiles.
In the past 20 years, fiber production has doubled. Today, we use more than 125 million metric tons of fibers every year.
Yang, a professor of textiles, merchandising, fashion design, and biological systems engineering, says it’s not realistic to grow enough cotton or raise enough sheep to meet this growing demand.
As a result, we’re using more synthetic fibers, but those come with problems too, like microplastic pollution. Finding a way to recycle existing fibers into new ones is essential.
Currently, most textile recycling breaks old garments down into lower-quality products, like insulation or stuffing.
True garment-to-garment recycling is extremely limited and cannot be done at a large scale.
Mechanical recycling methods exist but are harsh on the fibers, and they require adding more than half new, virgin fibers to produce usable yarn.
The real challenge has been dealing with dyes and blended fabrics. Dyes are made to bond tightly to fibers, making them very hard to remove.
Blends of natural and synthetic fibers also complicate recycling.
Yang’s team, including doctoral student Yuanyi Shao, developed an aqueous (water-based) system that can remove dyes without damaging the fibers themselves. It also recycles the solvents and dyes used in the process, making the method even more sustainable.
Their results, published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling, show that this system works on a wide variety of textiles, including cotton, cotton-polyester blends, acrylics, wool, and even carpets. In one study, they successfully removed dyes from used denim and produced artificial cellulosic fibers that were even better quality than those made from wood pulp.
Yang is applying for a patent on the technology and believes it can be scaled up for industrial use. However, he stresses that interest from industry partners will be crucial because setting up large-scale recycling facilities requires major investment.
Along with recycling old fibers, Yang’s team is also exploring how to create new textiles from agricultural waste, like chicken feathers. Their overall goal is to make the textile industry more sustainable by both reducing the need for new fibers and finding better ways to reuse the fibers we already have.
Yang believes that without these innovations, it will be impossible to meet the world’s growing demand for textiles in an environmentally responsible way.
