)20. www.Environmentalimpactoftextilereuseandrecycling.

( how much perchentage use)

21.The Fiber Year Consulting, 2015. The Fiber

Year 2015, World Survey on Textiles and
Nonwovens. Issue 15. April 2015.( textile fiber
increasing globally)
22.Because of the aforementioned challenges,
there is regulatory interest in increasing textile
reuse and recycling, which would move the
treatment of textile waste further up in the
waste hierarchy, consistent with the EU
directive on waste (European Commission (EC),
2008). Increased textile reuse and recycling
could potentially reduce the production of
virgin textile fibres and, in the case of reuse,
also avoid engineering processes further
downstream in the textile product life cycle,
and thus reduce environmental impact. The
potential environmental benefits of various
systems of textile reuse and recycling have
been assessed in the literature, using methods
like life cycle assessment (LCA). To date, no
review of such studies has been published in
the academic literature or elsewhere, which
means that there is no available comprehensive
source of information on, for example, (i) what
has been studied and what has not been
studied (e.g. in terms of product systems and
environmental issues); (ii) what the results of
such studies tell us about the environmental
potential of textile reuse and recycling; (iii)
what methods and methodological
assumptions areusuallyemployed
insuchstudies; (iv)whether there are general
methodological challenges to resolve; and (v)
what inventory data pertaining to textile reuse
and recycling is available in theliterature.
Therefore, the aim of this paper is
toreviewstudies of the environmental impact of
textile reuse and recyclin ( Pelletier, N.,
Allacker, K., Pant, R., Manfredi, S., 2014. The
European Commission Organisation
Environmental Footprint method: comparison
with other methods, and rationales for key
requirements. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess 19,
387e404)

23. Theinterest in increased textile reuse and

recycling is consistent with the increased
attention being given to the circular economy
concept in international and national policy,
see for example the 2015 EU Circular Economy
Action Plan (EC, 2017) and the 11th Chinese
five-year plan issued in 2006 (Zhijun and
Nailing, 2007). In the business world, circular
economy has gained momentum through the
work by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation,
whose circular economy system diagram
highlights the important role of reuse and
recycling in a potential future circular economy
(Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017b).( . Zhijun,
F., Nailing, Y., 2007. Putting circular economy
into practice in China. Sustain. Sci. 2, 95e101.)
24. Textile recycling routes are typically
classified as being either mechanical, chemical
or, less frequently, thermal. This is in many
cases a simplification of reality, as recycling
routes often consist of a mix of mechanical,
chemical and thermal processes. For example,
chemical recycling most often refers to a
recycling route in which the polymers are
depolymerised (in the case of synthetic
polymer f ibres derived from petrochemicals,
such as polyester) or dissolved (in the case of
natural or synthetic cellulosic fibres, such as
cotton and viscose). Having thus been
dissembled to molecular levels, monomers or
oligomers are repolymerised, and polymers
respun into new fibres. However, prior to the
depolymerisation or dissolution, the recycled
material is most often mechanically pretreated.
Moreover, thermal recycling often refers to the
conversion of PET f lakes, pellets or chips into
fibres by meltextrusion e but the flakes, pellets
and chips have been produced from PET waste
by mechanical means, which is why this
recycling route is sometimes referred to as
mechanical recycling (Shen et al., 2010b).
Furthermore, the term thermal recycling is
easily confused with thermal recovery, which is
when textile waste is incinerated to generate
heat and/or electricity (Schmidt et al., 2016). To
complicate things further, incineration with
energy recovery is occasionally labelled as
recycling, although the term recycling most
often refers solely to material recycling (as is
the case in the present paper). So the
systematisation of recycling routes into
mechanical, chemical and thermal ones is
ambiguous and questionable. In the present
paper, instead of systematising recycling routes
based on thenatureof one of the processes
involved, we systematise based on the level of
disassembly of the recovered material. If the
fabric of a product is recovered and reused in
new products, we refer to this as fabric
recycling (sometimes this is referred to as
material reuse (Zamani et al., 2015)). If the
fabric is dissembled, but the original fibres are
preserved, this is fibre recycling. If the fibres
are dissembled, but the polymers or oligomers
are preserved, this is polymer/oligomer
recycling. And if the polymers/oligomers are
dissembled, but the monomers are preserved,
this is monomer recycling. Then there are
various means of achieving these types of
recycling routes, often by combining various
mechanical, chemical and thermal processes.
The above systematisation of recycling routes
resembles a systemisation recently presented
by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017a).
(Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017b. Circular
Economy System Diagram. Available at:
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/cir
cular-economy/interactivediagram (Accessed
June 2017).Other classifications of recycling
routes also deserve mentioning. For example, if
the recycled material is of lower value (or
quality) than the original product, this is termed
downcycling. Today, existing textile recycling
routes are in most cases downcycling. Clothing
and home textiles are downcycled into, for
example, industrial rags, low-grade blankets,
insulation materials and upholstery (Schmidt et
al., 2016).(Schmidt, A., Watson, D., Roos, S.,
Askham, C., Poulsen, P.B., 2016. Gaining
benefits from discarded textiles e LCA of
different treatment pathways. TemaNord
2016,) In contrast, if a product from recycled
material is of higher value (or quality) than the
original product, it is termed upcycling. As the
length of the fibres and the constituent
molecules are reduced by wear and laundry
(Palme et al., 2014), fabric and fibre recycling
typically yields materials of lower quality (if
quality is defined in terms of fibre quality) than
materials made from virgin fibres (unless mixed
with yarn from virgin fibres). Thus fabric and
fibre recycling are typically considered to be
downcycling (at least in terms of fibre quality e
in terms of other qualities of the end product,
such as aesthetics, fit-forpurpose or material
qualities defined by fabric construction rather
than fibre quality, certain end products made
from recycled f ibres or fabrics may still be
considered upcycled). In contrast, polymer,
oligomer and monomer recycling typically
yields fibres of similar quality to virgin fibres. It
should be emphasised that just because fibre
and fabric recycling are examples of
downcycling (in terms of fibre quality), they are
not necessarily less preferable from a waste
hierarchy perspective compared to polymer,
oligomer or monomer recycling. In contrast, a
cascade approach could be optimal, in which
the textile waste first enters fabric or fibre
recycling, and once the fibre length has been
reduced to a level at which the material is not
fit for fabric or fibre recycling, it enters
polymer, oligomer or monomer recycling.
Anotherclassification for recycling routes is into
closed-or openloop recycling. Closed-loop
recycling refers to when the material from a
product is recycled and used in a (more or less)
identical product, whereas open-loop recycling
(also called cascade recycling) refers to
processes in which the material from a product
is recycled and used in another product (Ekvall
and Finnveden, 2001; Kl€opffer, 1996). A
“product” can here refer to different levels of
refinement, which means that a given recycling
route may be referred to as either closed-or
open-loop recycling, depending on context. For
example, something that is a product in a
business-tobusiness context (e.g. a fibre or a
fabric) may not be in a retail or consumer
context (where garments are key textile
products). The latter viewpoint would imply
that closed-loop recycling relies on, for
example, a T-shirt being recycled into a T-shirt e
or even a Tshirt of a certain size, colour and,
perhaps most importantly, quality (e.g., fibre
length) being recycled into a T-shirt of the same
size, colour and quality. In contrast, a more lax
definition of closed-loop recycling could, for
example, be that a material category (such as
packaging) is recycled into the same material
category rather than another (such as textiles,
as is the case in the aforementioned bottle-to-
fibre recycling) (€Ostlund et al., 2015). Fig. 1
summarises the above classification of various
fo.

25. Current
In the textile industry, reuse and recycling (in
the form of downcycling) is already well
established. For example, in Europe about
15e20% of disposed textiles are collected (the
rest is landfilled or incinerated), whereof about
50% is downcycled and 50% is reused, mainly
through exporting to developing countries
(Textile Recycling Association, 2005). There are,
however, large variations within Europe: more
prominent examples are Germany, in which
about 70% of disposed textiles are collected for
reuse and recycling, whereof a fraction is
separated for incineration (Textile Recycling
Association, 2005),(Textile Recycling
Association, 2005. OUVERTES Project -Report
by Textile Reuse and Recycling Players on the
Status of the Industry in Europe. Available at:
http:// www.textile-
recycling.org.uk/downloads/Report_Ouvertes_
Project_June2005% 5B1%5D.pdf (Accessed
June 2017).) and Denmark, in which about 50%
is collected, mainly for reuse domestically or
abroad (Palm et al., 2014). Still, there is a great
potential to further increase reuse, as clothing
items typically are disposed of long before the
end of their technical service life (Roos et al.,
2017; Woolridge et al., 2006).