However there are just a few challenges with this course of that I see lots in recycling strategies. First, reaching a big industrial scale can be troublesome—as one researcher that Sarah spoke to identified, the solvent used within the course of is dear and hard to get better after it’s used.
Recycling strategies additionally usually wind up degrading the product in a roundabout way, a difficult drawback to unravel. It is a main downside to conventional mechanical recycling as nicely—usually, recycled plastic isn’t fairly as sturdy or sturdy because the contemporary stuff. Within the case of this examine, the issue isn’t really with the plastic, however with the opposite supplies that researchers try to protect.
The start of the textile recycling course of entails shredding the clothes into superb items to permit the chemical substances to seep in and do their work breaking down the plastic. That chops up the cotton fibers too, rendering them too quick to be spun into new yarn. So as a substitute of a brand new T-shirt, the cotton from this course of is perhaps damaged down and used as one thing else, like biofuel.
There’s potential for future enchancment—the researchers tried to alter up their technique to disassemble the materials in a manner that might protect longer cotton fibers, however the reported analysis suggests it doesn’t work nicely with the chemical course of to this point.
This story bought me fascinated with a current function from ProPublica, the place Lisa Track took a have a look at the fact of business superior recycling right this moment. She targeted on pyrolysis, which makes use of warmth to interrupt down plastic into its constructing blocks. As she outlines within the story, whereas the trade pitches these new strategies as an answer to our plastics disaster, the fact of the expertise right this moment is way from the perfect we think about.
Most new recycling strategies are nonetheless in growth, and it’s actually troublesome to get better helpful supplies at excessive charges in a manner that makes it potential to make use of them once more. Doing all that at a scale giant sufficient to even make a dent in our plastics drawback is an enormous problem.
Simply one thing to remember the following time you see these little arrows.
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Learn Sarah’s full story on efforts to recycle blended textiles right here.
