Until now, old clothes have mainly been incinerated. Using adapted processes from paper production, it is possible to recover the cellulose fibers from used clothing and use them to produce cardboard and other packaging materials. In Austria alone, about 220,000 tons of textile waste are produced every year, of which almost 80% is incinerated.
As a result, valuable raw materials are irretrievably lost. A team led by Thomas Harter from the Institute of Bioproducts and Paper Technology has come up with a sustainable solution to this problem. The researchers have developed a process to recover the fibers from cotton-based, used textiles and use them to produce paper for packaging materials. Compared to conventional recycled paper, the paper with textile fiber content proves to be significantly stronger.
“Strictly speaking, the conversion of textile fibers into paper is a downgrade,” says Harter. “However, it has a major advantage from an environmental point of view. The paper cycle is highly closed, with recycling rates of over 90% in the packaging sector. If we bring valuable textile fibers into this cycle, they remain usable for a long time.” Recycled textiles can be an important source of raw materials for the production of packaging paper and help to reduce the amount of paper imports currently used for this purpose.