What is the way out for the recycling of waste textiles?

Polaris solid waste network news: Recently, the national development and Reform Commission issued the 14th five year plan for the development of circular economy (hereinafter referred to as the plan)《 The plan points out that resource recycling has become an important way to ensure China's resource security“ During the 14th Five Year Plan period, we will vigorously develop the circular economy, promote the economical and intensive utilization of resources, and build a resource recycling industrial system and a recycling system of waste materials.

"The plan will provide development space for the waste textile (hereinafter referred to as waste textile) reuse industry." Yang Yinghong, executive director of Shanghai Yuanyuan Industrial Co., Ltd., said, "generally, the eliminated and discarded textiles are divided into two categories: old textiles and waste textiles. Old textiles are clothing and home textile products that are eliminated after living consumption. They can maintain their original form and prolong their service life. The waste textile can only be used as raw materials, but due to various restrictive factors, its utilization rate is less than 20%. Most of them are mainly treated by incineration and landfill, causing great pollution to the environment. Therefore, improving the recycling of waste textile has become the focus of the industry during the 14th Five Year Plan period. "

The utilization rate of waste textile reaches 60%, and the carbon dioxide emission can be reduced by 25.92 million tons.

According to the data provided by China Textile Industry Federation, China's textile industry consumed 49.7 million tons of textile raw materials in 2016, accounting for 48% of the total global textile raw material consumption, 52% in 2017 and about 55% in 2018, ranking first in the world.

According to the calculation, Yang Yinghong pointed out: "in the production and processing link, the annual output of textile leftovers is about 2 million tons at 4%, and the process of textile processing into consumer goods is about 3 million tons at 6%. In addition, in the consumption link, the special research data organized by enterprises show that, including uniforms of civil servants, security guards and students, more than 10 million tons of clothes (waste textiles are mainly waste clothes) may be eliminated every year, of which about 1 / 3 become old textiles, which can maintain the original form and prolong the service life, and the remaining 2 / 3 about 6.66 million tons become waste textiles. All together, nearly 12 million tons of waste textile can be used every year. "

In 2017, 14 departments including the national development and Reform Commission issued the notice on printing and distributing leading actions for circular development, which clearly required to promote the recycling and upgrading of renewable resources, promote the resource utilization of waste textiles, and establish a hierarchical utilization mechanism for waste textiles. Enterprises and industries are encouraged to actively recycle waste textile for secondary utilization.

Public data show that in 2018, the comprehensive utilization of waste textile in China was about 3.8 million tons, with a comprehensive utilization rate of about 19%. Although the utilization rate of waste textile has been improved, it still has great development space.

Zhao Guoliang, Professor of China Institute of apparel science and technology, Beijing Institute of fashion, said: "if waste textiles are not fully utilized, on the one hand, it will cause waste of raw materials such as natural fibers such as cotton, wool, silk and hemp and synthetic fibers with petroleum as raw materials, as well as energy waste in spinning, dyeing and finishing; On the other hand, chemical fiber is difficult to degrade in nature. If it is treated by landfill, it will cause long-term pollution to the environment. Therefore, the utilization of waste textiles is not only a resource reuse problem, but also a major environmental problem. "

According to the research data of the Research Institute of Copenhagen University, the carbon dioxide emission will be reduced by 3.6kg for each kilogram of waste textile.

Yang Yinghong said that if 12 million tons of waste textile are produced every year and the comprehensive utilization rate reaches 60% (i.e. the profit is 7.2 million tons), the carbon dioxide emission can be reduced by 25.92 million tons. If an enterprise uses 60000 tons of waste textile every year, it is expected to reduce 216000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, 260000 tons of water, 18000 tons of fertilizer, 12000 tons of pesticides and 480 tons of chemical dyes.

The enterprises at the end of the industrial chain are uneven, and most of the waste textiles are used for dimensionality reduction.

From the perspective of energy conservation and carbon reduction, it is of great significance to improve the recycling and harmless of waste textile and promote the efficient utilization of waste textile. However, due to the limitations of technology and cost, the efficient utilization of waste textile is still a difficult problem.

"The recycling methods of waste textile in China mainly rely on the recycling of small vendors, fixed-point centralized recycling in residential areas, etc. The quality of employees engaged in waste textile recycling is uneven, and most of them are operated in partnership with family members. They not only belong to unlicensed operation, but also have no ability to process and produce as raw materials. After waste textile recycling, they are diverted to corresponding production and processing enterprises. " Yang Yinghong pointed out the problems existing in the waste textile industry chain from the recycling end.

"At the waste textile disposal end, under the existing economic and technical conditions, many enterprises simply select and use the usable second-hand clothes and raw materials by classification and classification, and the rest becomes the lowest level waste such as' black material 'and' fire material '. This part of waste should be treated as harmless diversion. But at present, it is known that part of the waste textile is disposed of as dry waste incineration, and the flow direction of some is unknown. " Yang Yinghong said.

Zhao Guoliang also said that the immature production, processing and utilization process led to serious waste of waste textile. He said: "although China's waste textile recycling has a long history, there have been problems such as small scale, backward technology and low added value of products. Some processing and utilization enterprises use low value-added methods to make use of what they feel valuable from the point of view of materials, and the proportion of utilization is particularly low. "

"The most ideal state is to classify the waste textile and use it respectively according to different levels to ensure the recycling rate and high-value utilization of the waste textile." Zhao Guoliang pointed out, "now waste spinning is mostly blended products, which may contain various types and proportions of fibers. For high-value reuse, they need to be separated according to their components, and then recycled and utilized according to different components. At present, the cost of automatic sorting equipment is still high. Many small and medium-sized enterprises directly loosen waste spinning into short fiber flocs by physical method without grading. In fact, some of the waste textiles entering the Kaisong factory have good quality and long fibers, which can be decomposed into some coarse yarns through technology, and then continue to be used as textile raw materials. However, most enterprises at the end of the industrial chain do not have corresponding technologies and equipment. Waste textile is not only used for dimensionality reduction, but also the utilization rate is not high. "

To improve the utilization rate of waste textile and reduce waste, we need to work from many aspects.

"In the past decade, especially after the establishment of the technological innovation strategic alliance of waste textile industry in 2012, the technical level related to waste textile recycling in China has been significantly improved." Zhao Guoliang said that with the development of circular economy, relevant standards will be continuously improved.

It is understood that the current national standards for waste textiles include the classification and code of waste textiles implemented in 2020, the technical specification for waste textile recycling, and the technical specification for waste textile recycling, which will be officially implemented on October 1 this year. These norms give clear guidance and norms to enterprises in the whole industrial chain from the aspects of waste textile classification, recycling and recycling.

Taking the technical specification for recycling of waste textiles as an example, in order to reduce the serious waste of waste textile enterprises, the specification points out that the comprehensive utilization rate of waste textile should be greater than 75%. The specification also makes relevant provisions from three aspects: pretreatment, recycling and environmental protection of waste textile.

Zhao Guoliang is one of the drafters of the above three national standards. He said that although the three standards are recommended standards, they play a great guiding role in relevant enterprises. In the future, the specifications will be continuously improved. Enterprises need to improve the annual treatment capacity and comprehensive utilization rate of waste textile. Some enterprises with low technical level and unable to meet the requirements will be forced to withdraw, and the utilization rate of waste textile will be improved.

"Some previously issued documents lack specific implementation measures. The development of waste textile recycling industry is in a state of insufficient top-level attention, unsmooth management system and disorderly and nonstandard industry development. " Yang Yinghong said, "the plan proposes to promote the development of circular economy through policy guarantee during the 14th Five Year Plan period, including improving laws, regulations and standards of circular economy, improving the statistical evaluation system of circular economy, strengthening fiscal, tax and financial policy support, strengthening industry supervision, etc. We look forward to more specific policies and measures in the future to support waste textile recycling enterprises and relevant enterprises using waste textile raw materials for production. "

It is understood that Dingyuan (Hangzhou) Textile Technology Co., Ltd., designated by the Ministry of industry and information technology as the construction unit of "major demonstration project of textile resource recycling", has solved various technical problems in the process of waste textile recycling through five laboratories: Physics, chemistry, microorganism, sound absorption and flame retardant. In the future, with the promotion of technology research and development, commercial application will also be realized“ Then, at the source of waste spinning, in addition to establishing an orderly and clear waste spinning recycling and utilization mode and increasing the high-value utilization proportion of waste spinning, residents should also enhance the awareness of classifying waste spinning separately. After all, to improve the utilization rate of waste spinning, the effect can be better from many aspects. " Yang Yinghong said.