#Textile Recycling Industry

[industrynewsupdates]

Segmentation Analysis of the Textile Recycling Market

The global textile recycling market was valued at approximately USD 4,632.4 million in 2022 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.2% from 2023 to 2030. This growth is largely driven by rising environmental concerns regarding textile waste and increasing social awareness about the importance of textile recycling. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), around 5% of landfill space is filled with textile waste. In the United States, an estimated 25 billion pounds of textiles are produced annually, which translates to approximately 82 pounds per person. These factors are expected to significantly boost the demand for textile recycling in the coming years.

Textile waste recycling plays a crucial role in promoting environmental sustainability. One effective recycling method is upcycling, which maximizes the conservation of resources such as water, raw materials, and energy, while minimizing environmental impacts. Additionally, recycling textiles has a lower environmental footprint compared to incineration or landfill disposal. By replacing products made from virgin materials, resource recovery can yield substantial environmental benefits. All these elements are anticipated to positively influence market growth over the forecast period.

Moreover, the rising global population and increasing consumer spending capacity are likely to lead to greater textile waste generation, raising concerns about effective waste management. Many government agencies and private companies are viewing textile recycling as a viable solution to address these challenges and promote a circular economy. According to a report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2022, the recycling rate for all textiles in the country stood at 14.7% in 2018, highlighting the potential for improvement in this sector.

Gather more insights about the market drivers, restrains and growth of the Textile Recycling Market

Source Insights

By source, the apparel waste segment represented 28.9% of the global textile recycling revenue in 2022. This segment includes waste generated from leftover fabric during manufacturing, damaged or rejected garments, and post-consumer discarded clothing and footwear. Over the past two decades, the average lifespan of new garments has significantly decreased, leading to increased waste generation within the apparel industry. These dynamics are expected to further fuel the demand for recycling within this sector.

Home furnishing waste, which encompasses textiles generated from items such as pillows, carpets, rugs, bedsheets, curtains, and sofas, is another growing segment. Increased disposable income worldwide has led to higher spending and more frequent purchases of these products, resulting in greater home furnishing waste. Factors contributing to this trend include population growth, a wider variety of home furnishings, and improved living standards, all of which generate substantial post-industrial and post-consumer waste in this category. These elements are projected to drive demand for recycling of home furnishing textiles.

The automotive waste segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period. Textiles used in vehicles, including carpets, seat covers, cushions, roof liners, door liners, tires, filters, and airbags, contribute to automotive waste. The rise in vehicle ownership in developing countries is exacerbating the issue of automotive waste. Initiatives aimed at managing automotive textile waste are likely to positively impact market growth.

Stuffed toys also fall under the category of textiles suitable for recycling. According to the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART), only 15% of textiles in the U.S. are donated for reuse or recycling. Annually, the average American family discards about 324 pounds of unwanted textiles, including stuffed toys. In 2021, Bank & Vogue Ltd. successfully recycled approximately 1,400,000 pounds of toys. Additionally, SK-Tex has recycled clothing into materials for car seat upholstery filling, furniture insulation, and ECO building insulation. These trends are expected to enhance the demand for recycling initiatives focused on items such as sailing and fishing nets, insulation materials, and stuffed toys.

Order a free sample PDF of the Textile Recycling Market Intelligence Study, published by Grand View Research.

[neha24blog]

Textile Recycling Market Outlook On The Basis Of Material, Source, Process, Region And Forecast to 2030: Grand View Research Inc.

San Francisco, 8 Sep 2023: The Report Textile Recycling Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Material (Cotton, Polyester, Wool, Polyamide), By Source (Apparel Waste), By Process (Mechanical), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2023 – 2030 The global textile recycling market size is expected to reach USD 5,962.7 million by 2030, expanding at a CAGR of 3.2% from 2023 to 2030, according to…

[wahid007posts]

Textile recycling market is projected to reach USD 9.4 billion by 2027, growing at a cagr 6.4%. Watch detailed video on textile recycling industry size, growth opportunities, top players etc.

[bumblebeeappletree]

Every year, nearly 100 billion items of clothing are produced – and 65% of them end up in a landfill within 12 months. New technologies in textile recycling may be able to curb that waste – while producing a host of sustainable materials.

#planeta #recycling #fastfashion #circulareconomy #textileindustry

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

Follow Planet A on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dw_planeta?la...

Credits:

Report: Dave Braneck

Video Editor: Frederik Willmann

Supervising Editor: Michael Trobridge

Fact Check: Alexander Paquet

Thumbnail: Ém Chabridon

Read More:

McKinsey - Scaling Textile Recycling in Europe

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/r...

NY Times - Will We Ever Be Able to Recycle Our Clothes Like an Aluminum Can?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/st...

EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles https://environment.ec.europa.eu/stra...

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:46 Textile waste's global impact

02:47 How do you actually recycle clothes?

03:50 New approaches to textile recycling

07:41 What else needs solving?

11:41 Can we even recycle all the clothes we make?

[certaincircuitsmagazine]

L-R: Rachel Blythe Udell, Jenna McGraw, Suki Valentine, Ash Garner - THECOLORG, Phillip Chang & Paul Vo, Jamie Campbell, Joanna Fulginiti,  May Maani

Cherry Street Pier Resident Bonnie MacAllister (Studio 16) juried an open call to find fellow Philly artists working in non-traditional fibers.  Phantastic Phibers creates an atmosphere of industrial, fiber optic, hyperbolic, puppetry, soft sculpture, no waste weaving,  and non traditional textiles.  The exhibition  transports the pier into a nautilus full of suspended materials including recycled electronics and bicycle parts, a nine foot tunnel, a series of birds, a cursed sweater, a quilt poem, enormous weavings, a tower of electrical cord baskets, giant fish, deconstructed silks, and sea monsters.  Two and three dimensional work will fill the gallery space and second floor.

The exhibition showcases collaborative pieces from Phillip Chang and Paul Vo, May Maani and Chris Lau, Rachel Udell and Jeremy Newman, Bonnie MacAllister and Ndokaa Bundu, and MacAllister and Jamie Campbell as well as work from Joanna Fulginiti,

Suki Valentine, Aja Beech, Bennett Cafarelli, Kristina Behler, Ericha Fletcher, Caroline Maw-Deis, Jenna McGraw, Yvette Malloy-Jiggetts, Ash Garner-THECOLORG,  Jennifer Ahearn,  and Jenny Lee Maas.  

The Philadelphia Drunken Knitwits (begun in Oxford) are providing textures around the perimeter of the pier, their second large scale knitbombing installation after they covered government buildings in the UK.

The exhibition reception features video, performance,  &  fiber by the 2024 cohort  @ cherrystreetpier

[swan-energy]

Textile Recycling: Transforming the Industry for Sustainability

Discover how textile recycling offers a sustainable solution to the environmental challenges facing the textile industry. Learn about innovative approaches, investment trends, and the potential for circularity to mitigate pollution and drive economic growth.

Accounting for a remarkable 2% of the world's GDP and employing millions worldwide, these sectors are integral to global development.

Yet, their operations contribute substantially to pollution, with alarming statistics highlighting their adverse effects on the environment. It produces 21 billion tonnes of trash, of which 20% is dye house wastewater effluent, 22 million tonnes of microfibres, and more than 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Read more...

[zenlesszonezero]

[reasonsforhope]

"California has approved a bill to help address the dark side effects of the externally glitzy fast-fashion sector, putting the onus on manufacturers to implement repair and recycling programs. 

According to CalMatters' Digital Democracy project, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 on Sept. 28, more than a year after the bill began making its way through the state legislature. 

The act seeks to address the growing problem of waste from the fashion industry. CalMatters notes in its analysis that the Golden State tossed more than 1.3 million tons of textiles in 2018. 

As it stands, the state ships 45% of the items that are donated overseas, which contributes to environmental pollution, and once there, much of it still ends up in landfills, where it produces potent heat-trapping gases such as methane. 

In Ghana, for example, which has seen its beaches polluted by fast-fashion waste, 40% of the 15 million garments received each week are discarded. All in all, despite the fact that 95% of California's materials are recyclable, only 15% of clothing and textiles are reused. 

Democratic state senator Josh Newman, the bill's sponsor, told the Guardian that these concerning figures inspired him to take action.   

"We worked really hard to consult with and eventually to align all of the stakeholders in the life cycle of textiles so that at the end there was no opposition," he explained. "That's an immensely hard thing to do when you consider the magnitude of the problem and all of the very different interests."

According to the Guardian, the program is expected to go into effect in 2028, with its numerous backers anticipating it could create as many as 1,000 jobs in the Golden State. 

Details are still being hammered out. However, garment manufacturers who aren't already participating in eco-friendly programs will have incentives to adopt greener practices, with recycling collection sites and mail-back programs among the possibilities.  

And while some have worried that small businesses and mid-sized brands could be disproportionately impacted by the legislation and end up passing on the prices to consumers, Newman estimates that the cost should be less than 10 cents per garment or textile."

-via The Cool Down, October 3, 2024

[earaercircular]

As of last Saturday on, textile producers in the Netherlands are responsible for discarded clothing

From 1 July on, producers are responsible for discarded clothing. That is when the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) comes into effect. The aim is for more reuse, less waste and less pollution.

The introduction of the EPR[1] has been discussed in The Hague for years. The reason is easy to guess: images of waste heaps in various places in the world do show what happens to discarded clothing.[2] Previous research showed that only 1 percent of all clothing items are recycled into new clothing.[3] The rest is burned or dumped in poorer countries.[4] By making producers and importers from now on responsible themselves - instead of municipalities and the consumers themselves - this should finally change.

All producers who place clothing and household textiles on the Dutch market must comply with the EPR. They are now obliged to organise an 'appropriate collection system' where consumers can return their old textile products free of charge all year round.[5] Producers are themselves responsible for the costs necessary to process the discarded clothing. They must also report annually on how many products have come onto the market and how the EPR obligations have been met.

Fibre-to-fibre recycling

The UPV has various objectives. For example, by 2025, at least 50 percent of the weight of clothing put on the market the previous year must be prepared for reuse or recycling[6]. In 2030 that should be 75 percent. At least 15 percent of this must be reused within the Netherlands by 2030. Furthermore, from 2025, a quarter of the textiles placed on the market must be processed in such a way that they are suitable for fibre-to-fibre recycling; that means it can be reworked into clothing.[7]

Retail chain and clothing manufacturer Zeeman[8] said earlier that he sees a lot of potential in the EPR.[9]  “It will stimulate the sector to take steps towards circularity. Raw materials are scarce and are becoming more expensive. That is why it is necessary to encourage and give a new impulse to circularity,” said Arnoud van Vliet, sustainability manager at Zeeman. Where do you think lies the biggest challenge? “In information and recycling. It's a kind of behavioural change. People have learned to hand in batteries and take glass to the bottle bank. That should also happen with clothing.”

Source

Chantal Blommers, Textielproducenten vanaf zaterdag zelf verantwoordelijk voor afgedankte kleding, in: Change Inc, 30-06-2023, https://www.change.inc/retail/textielproducenten-vanaf-zaterdag-zelf-verantwoordelijk-voor-afgedankte-kleding-40138

[1] What is Extended Producer Responsibility? To change this, the Dutch government wants to introduce an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for manufacturers in 2023. This makes clothing companies responsible for what happens to their own products after use. And that is badly needed, says Michiel Kort, research project leader at Rebel, who wrote a proposal for an EPR. “With an EPR, you as a producer are also responsible for what happens to a product after you have brought it onto the market,” explains Kort. At the moment, municipalities are still responsible for the collection and costs of their residents' discarded textiles, but the measure should give the industry a financial incentive to produce high-quality clothing that lends itself well to recycling.

[2] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/708981496814436352/the-countdown-has-started-is-the-dutch-fashion?source=share & https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/701253770916528128/the-momentum-to-change-the-garment-industry-has?source=share

[3] Only 1 percent of all clothing is recycled into new clothing, the rest is burned or dumped in poorer countries. Something needs to be done about this, the sector itself sees. At the end of May, State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven announced the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (UPV) for the clothing and textile sector. The goal: more reuse, less waste and less pollution. Consultancy Rebel, together with TAUW, wrote a proposal for the UPV on behalf of the ministry. “The targets must be stimulating and ambitious, and become stricter over time, because the clothing sector must change.” https://www.change.inc/retail/producenten-ook-verantwoordelijk-voor-afgedankte-kleding-helpt-dit-de-kledingsector-verduurzamen-37145

[4] Read also:  https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/709136729726140416/what-do-we-do-with-used-clothing-the-fashion?source=share

[5] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/713844330016768000/what-will-the-textile-recycling-boom-be-like-in?source=share

[6] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/675352537715687424/the-fashion-jobs-of-the-future-are-in-recycling?source=share

[7] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/710245870774468608/a-first-this-recycling-machine-can-turn-any?source=share

[8] Zeeman textielSupers B.V. (stylized as ZEEMAN) is a Dutch chain store with 1,300 establishments in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Austria, Spain and Portugal.

[9] Clothing manufacturer Zeeman sees a lot of potential in the UPV. “It will stimulate the sector to take steps towards circularity. Raw materials are scarce and are becoming more expensive. That is why it is necessary to encourage circularity and to give it a new impulse,” says Arnoud van Vliet, sustainability manager at Zeeman. Used clothing can already be collected in about 50 Zeeman stores and this will be possible in all stores by the end of the year. Sustainability is an important theme for Zeeman. For example, they are affiliated with the Bangladesh agreement and the Fair Wear Foundation, which ensures safe working conditions for workers. They also work with recycled material, but only when the product allows it. “Recycled material is not suitable for every product. A recycled cotton fibre is a lot coarser than a virgin fibre. Then coarse fibres are much more suitable for socks, for example.”https://www.change.inc/retail/producenten-ook-verantwoordelijk-voor-afgedankte-kleding-helpt-dit-de-kledingsector-verduurzamen-37145

[sharonallen246]

The Upcycling And Recycling Of The Textile Industry

It is gradually relegating its more established first cousin ‘recycling’ to the status of a mass consumer-driven activity on the sustainability continuum.

[h0neyfreak]

helping “The Environment” as an individual is such a nebulous and ever changing concept and seems to be very much in the Discourse™️ at the moment so I just want to take a minute to shout into the void with some reminders I gave my enviro students when they got to the “oh dear god we’re all gonna die” phase of the class:

“Individual choices don’t matter” is like. true(?) for climate change (unless you’re a kardashian or CEO or something) but that just means you can’t reusable tote bag your way out of a private jet society. NOT that you can’t have any impact through community initiatives and activism. Advocate for municipal composting and public transit!! Get involved locally!!!!! Write weekly to your representatives! Do whatever you can to get unstuck and scrape together some modicum of hope.

Also on individual choices. There are some that “matter” but be very wary of outsized benefits promised for seemingly small choices (e.g. the straw debacle). An app is not the thing to save us from a hundred years of industry. Going out and collecting litter DOES have an impact even if that impact is just “this area of the world no longer has trash in it.” It’s not solving the issue of microplastics or whatever but it is helping local birds. And it’s helping YOU feel more connected to your local environment and getting you involved with the world and your community.

Finally, the best thing you can be is well informed, persistent, and kind. Be willing and able to help if you bump into someone who is open to the idea of not letting Shell and SHEIN pour toxic sludge directly into every river. It’s more people than you think. But most people only know how to buy things that are “better.” (Electric cars, reusable bags, expensive neutral clothing made of flax). They want to do SOMETHING but we’re all just kind of vibrating balls of anxiety all the time. Know what sort of things are going on around you and invite them! My go to’s are composting initiatives, textile recycling programs, and pollinator friendly/grass free gardens.

Again, it would be great if we were all willing to drag the Shell and Nestle CEOs out to account for their crimes but being paralyzed by fear is not gonna help. Neither is another ethical clothing brand selling $400 linen underwear (probably). I’ve found time and time again that people who have any amount of tangible connection to the world outside have a much more visceral reaction to billionaire super yachts than defeatist suburbanites who drive EVs and have a kitchen full of dubious organic snacks.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

How Brazil Recycling Co-ops Are Helping Turn Plastic Waste Into Shoes

In the searing heat at the ACAMTC recycling cooperative south of São Paulo, in Três Corações, Brazil, a group of recycling waste workers known as Catadores prepared bales of discarded plastic for transport. As the group of mostly women worked, they spoke humbly of how important their work is to helping make the planet a cleaner place. “I feel a mix of admiration and sadness,” said Evelini Castro Rocha, financial director of the Rede Sul e Sudoeste de Minas Gerais network of cooperatives. “The work of the Catadores is essential for the health of the environment, and I am very happy to be a part of it.” But, she worries they don’t get enough recognition for their work. 

The inconvenient truth is that all the shoes we’ve ever owned and discarded are likely still sitting in a landfill. Over 24 billion pairs of shoes are produced globally each year, and in the U.S. alone, an estimated 300 million pairs are thrown away annually. With fast-fashion rampant, and marketing focused on novelty, designed to drive up consumption, people are buying more, but keeping items for half as long. Footwear is no exception, with consumers amassing sizable shoe collections with an equally sizable carbon footprint.

The fashion and textile industry has a reliance on petroleum-based materials, considered indispensable for their durability and versatility. Polyester, for example, now dominates as the most widely used fiber with 71 million tons produced in 2023, accounting for 57% of global fiber production. From nylon to acrylic, these synthetic materials have a concerning climate cost: the fossil fuels associated with textile production are contributing to the industry’s hefty climate footprint, with environmental impacts across the value chain, including water use, energy consumption, the release of microplastics, and over 92 million tons of textile waste produced per year. ​​This non-biodegradable textile waste ends up in landfills where it can take hundreds of years to break down, releasing greenhouse gasses and leaching toxic chemicals into groundwater and soil.

But an increasing number of brands are swapping out synthetic fibers for lower-impact recycled alternatives—like polyester made predominantly from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles—in a bid to minimize their environmental impact. The challenge, however, is that they are still synthetic materials at the end of the day, with many of the same impacts as their virgin counterparts. However, a supply chain focused on upcycling, complemented by initiatives designed to keep such materials from ending up as waste, can help mitigate some of these impacts.

Continue reading.

[mindblowingscience]

A staggering 60 million tons of polyester are produced annually, for things like clothes, couches, and curtains. That polyester production takes a toll on the climate and  environment, as only 15% of it gets recycled. The rest ends up in landfills or incinerated, which results in more carbon emissions. “The textile industry urgently requires a better solution to handle blended fabrics like polyester/cotton. Currently, there are very few practical methods capable of recycling both cotton and plastic—it’s typically an either-or scenario,” explains postdoctoral researcher Yang Yang of the Jiwoong Lee group at the University of Copenhagen’s chemistry department. “However, with our newly discovered technique, we can depolymerize polyester into its monomers while simultaneously recovering cotton on a scale of hundreds of grams, using an incredibly straightforward and environmentally friendly approach. This traceless catalytic methodology could be the game-changer.”

Continue Reading

[cognitivejustice]

What the bill proposes

The first focus of the proposed legislation is reshoring manufacturing supply chains that are currently in China. To do this, the bill suggests imposing increased tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. while simultaneously providing tax incentives to manufacturers that move their supply chains to the U.S. 

The second is the proposed 15 percent tax reduction for any U.S.-based business involved with the collection, reuse, repair, recycling, renting or processing of textiles. The $14 billion breaks down into four pools:

$10 billion will be made available for preferential loans for textile reuse and recycling;

$3 billion in grants for textile reuse and recycle, manufacturing support programs and components, and machinery to aid with product transportation and processing;

$1 billion in innovation program research and development related to textile use and recycling; and

$100 million for a public education program.

Rachel Kibbe, CEO of Circular Services Group and American Circular Textiles Group, has been working with Cassidy and Bennet on the bill and lauded its potential.

“With the bold textile reuse and recycling incentive provisions in the Americas Act, organizations in our industry will be able to reinvest in jobs in the U.S. and compete globally,” said Kibbe in a recent interview, “[while] fostering an environment to cultivate private capital.”

[mariacallous]

In 2023, the fast-fashion giant Shein was everywhere. Crisscrossing the globe, airplanes ferried small packages of its ultra-cheap clothing from thousands of suppliers to tens of millions of customer mailboxes in 150 countries. Influencers’ “#sheinhaul” videos advertised the company’s trendy styles on social media, garnering billions of views.

At every step, data was created, collected, and analyzed. To manage all this information, the fast fashion industry has begun embracing emerging AI technologies. Shein uses proprietary machine-learning applications — essentially, pattern-identification algorithms — to measure customer preferences in real time and predict demand, which it then services with an ultra-fast supply chain.

As AI makes the business of churning out affordable, on-trend clothing faster than ever, Shein is among the brands under increasing pressure to become more sustainable, too. The company has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050.

But climate advocates and researchers say the company’s lightning-fast manufacturing practices and online-only business model are inherently emissions-heavy — and that the use of AI software to catalyze these operations could be cranking up its emissions. Those concerns were amplified by Shein’s third annual sustainability report, released late last month, which showed the company nearly doubled its carbon dioxide emissions between 2022 and 2023.

“AI enables fast fashion to become the ultra-fast fashion industry, Shein and Temu being the fore-leaders of this,” said Sage Lenier, the executive director of Sustainable and Just Future, a climate nonprofit. “They quite literally could not exist without AI.” (Temu is a rapidly rising ecommerce titan, with a marketplace of goods that rival Shein’s in variety, price, and sales.)

In the 12 years since Shein was founded, it has become known for its uniquely prolific manufacturing, which reportedly generated over $30 billion of revenue for the company in 2023. Although estimates vary, a new Shein design may take as little as 10 days to become a garment, and up to 10,000 items are added to the site each day. The company reportedly offers as many as 600,000 items for sale at any given time with an average price tag of roughly $10. (Shein declined to confirm or deny these reported numbers.) One market analysis found that 44 percent of Gen Zers in the United States buy at least one item from Shein every month.

That scale translates into massive environmental impacts. According to the company’s sustainability report, Shein emitted 16.7 million total metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2023 — more than what four coal power plants spew out in a year. The company has also come under fire for textile waste, high levels of microplastic pollution, and exploitative labor practices. According to the report, polyester — a synthetic textile known for shedding microplastics into the environment — makes up 76 percent of its total fabrics, and only 6 percent of that polyester is recycled.

And a recent investigation found that factory workers at Shein suppliers regularly work 75-hour weeks, over a year after the company pledged to improve working conditions within its supply chain. Although Shein’s sustainability report indicates that labor conditions are improving, it also shows that in third-party audits of over 3,000 suppliers and subcontractors, 71 percent received a score of C or lower on the company’s grade scale of A to E — mediocre at best.

Machine learning plays an important role in Shein’s business model. Although Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s head of global strategy and corporate affairs, told Business Insider last August that AI was not central to its operations, he indicated otherwise during a presentation at a retail conference at the beginning of this year.

“We are using machine-learning technologies to accurately predict demand in a way that we think is cutting edge,” he said. Pernot-Day told the audience that all of Shein’s 5,400 suppliers have access to an AI software platform that gives them updates on customer preferences, and they change what they’re producing to match it in real time.

“This means we can produce very few copies of each garment,” he said. “It means we waste very little and have very little inventory waste.” On average, the company says it stocks between 100 to 200 copies of each item — a stark contrast with more conventional fast-fashion brands, which typically produce thousands of each item per season, and try to anticipate trends months in advance. Shein calls its model “on-demand,” while a technology analyst who spoke to Vox in 2021 called it “real-time” retail.

At the conference, Pernot-Day also indicated that the technology helps the company pick up on “micro trends” that customers want to wear. “We can detect that, and we can act on that in a way that I think we’ve really pioneered,” he said. A designer who filed a recent class action lawsuit in a New York District Court alleges that the company’s AI market analysis tools are used in an “industrial-scale scheme of systematic, digital copyright infringement of the work of small designers and artists,” that scrapes designs off the internet and sends them directly to factories for production.

In an emailed statement to Grist, a Shein spokesperson reiterated Peter Pernot-Day’s assertion that technology allows the company to reduce waste and increase efficiency and suggested that the company’s increased emissions in 2023 were attributable to booming business. “We do not see growth as antithetical to sustainability,” the spokesperson said.

An analysis of Shein’s sustainability report by the Business of Fashion, a trade publication, found that last year, the company’s emissions rose at almost double the rate of its revenue — making Shein the highest-emitting company in the fashion industry. By comparison, Zara’s emissions rose half as much as its revenue. For other industry titans, such as H&M and Nike, sales grew while emissions fell from the year before.

Shein’s emissions are especially high because of its reliance on air shipping, said Sheng Lu, a professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware. “AI has wide applications in the fashion industry. It’s not necessarily that AI is bad,” Lu said. “The problem is the essence of Shein’s particular business model.”

Other major brands ship items overseas in bulk, prefer ocean shipping for its lower cost, and have suppliers and warehouses in a large number of countries, which cuts down on the distances that items need to travel to consumers.

According to the company’s sustainability report, 38 percent of Shein’s climate footprint comes from transportation between its facilities and to customers, and another 61 percent come from other parts of its supply chain. Although the company is based in Singapore and has suppliers in a handful of countries, the majority of its garments are produced in China and are mailed out by air in individually addressed packages to customers. In July, the company sent about 900,000 of these to the US every day.

Shein’s spokesperson told Grist that the company is developing a decarbonization road map to address the footprint of its supply chain. Recently, the company has increased the amount of inventory it stores in US warehouses, allowing it to offer American customers quicker delivery times, and increased its use of cargo ships, which are more carbon-efficient than cargo planes.

“Controlling the carbon emissions in the fashion industry is a really complex process,” Lu said, adding that many brands use AI to make their operations more efficient. “It really depends on how you use AI.”

There is research that indicates using certain AI technologies could help companies become more sustainable. “It’s the missing piece,” said Shahriar Akter, an associate dean of business and law at the University of Wollongong in Australia. In May, Akter and his colleagues published a study finding that when fast-fashion suppliers used AI data management software to comply with big brands’ sustainability goals, those companies were more profitable and emitted less. A key use of this technology, Atker says, is to closely monitor environmental impacts, such as pollution and emissions. “This kind of tracking was not available before AI-based tools,” he said.

Shein told Grist it does not use machine-learning data management software to track emissions, which is one of the uses of AI included in Akter’s study. But the company’s much-touted usage of machine-learning software to predict demand and reduce waste is another of the uses of AI included in the research.

Regardless, the company has a long way to go before meeting its goals. Grist calculated that the emissions Shein reportedly saved in 2023 — with measures such as providing its suppliers with solar panels and opting for ocean shipping — amounted to about 3 percent of the company’s total carbon emissions for the year.

Lenier, from Sustainable and Just Future, believes there is no ethical use of AI in the fast-fashion industry. She said that the largely unregulated technology allows brands to intensify their harmful impacts on workers and the environment. “The folks who work in fast-fashion factories are now under an incredible amount of pressure to turn out even more, even faster,” she said.

Lenier and Lu both believe that the key to a more sustainable fashion industry is convincing customers to buy less. Lu said if companies use AI to boost their sales without changing their unsustainable practices, their climate footprints will also grow accordingly. “It’s the overall effect of being able to offer more market-popular items and encourage consumers to purchase more than in the past,” he said. “Of course, the overall carbon impact will be higher.”

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Depolymerization method achieves exclusive chemical recycling of PET from cloth waste and plastic waste mixtures

A research team led by Professor Kotohiro Nomura from Tokyo Metropolitan University has developed a method for the depolymerization of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) using alcohols and an inexpensive, readily available iron trichloride catalyst. This method can be applied to the selective chemical recycling of both textile and plastic waste mixtures. The research is published in the journal Industrial Chemistry & Materials. Plastic waste is a significant environmental issue that requires urgent attention. However, the rate of plastic reuse (material recycling) remains low, particularly in the case of chemical recycling into raw materials, a process known as chemical recycling. Polyesters, which consist of repeated "ester bonds" formed by the reaction of carboxylic acid and alcohol, are commonly used in plastic bottles and clothing.

Read more.