Low Carbon Life: Wide Space For Recycling Waste Spinning

From autumn to winter, the seasons change, and it's time for everyone to tidy up their clothes. Once upon a time, people would worry about a lot of old clothes that have been eliminated: it's a pity to lose them, and there is no place to send them away. Today, waste clothes have a better home.

Open the mobile phone, just simple operation, you can solve the problem of recycling old clothes on the Internet environmental protection recycling platform.

China is the largest textile and clothing producer and consumer in the world, with an annual fiber consumption of about 30 million tons and an annual per capita fiber consumption of about 22.4 kg, basically reaching the level of moderately developed countries. At the same time, a large number of waste textiles are produced.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, in 2020, China will produce more than 20 million tons of waste textiles, including old clothes, while the recovery amount is only 4.6 million tons, and the recycling rate is only about 20%.

How to maximize the utility of waste materials such as waste textiles has increasingly become the focus of attention of the textile industry and the whole society. Speeding up the construction of recycling system of waste textiles has also been put on the agenda.

　　 Wide space for recycling waste spinning

In August this year, 60 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, were established as key cities in the construction of waste materials recycling system. Accelerating the utility maximization of waste materials such as waste textiles has once again become a hot topic in related industries.

　　 "Generally, discarded textiles can be divided into two categories: old textiles and waste textiles. Old textiles are clothing and home textiles that have been eliminated after daily consumption, which can maintain their original form and extend their service life. However, the waste textiles can only be used as raw materials, but due to various restrictive factors, the utilization rate is less than 20%. Most of them are mainly incineration, landfill and other treatment methods It causes great pollution. Therefore, improving the recycling of waste spinning has become the focus of the industry during the "14th five year plan" Yang Yinghong, deputy director of Green Development Committee of textile industry of China Textile planning and Research Association and director of Shanghai Yuanyuan Industrial Co., Ltd., told China Textile News.

Sun Huaibin, former vice president of China Textile Industry Federation, said that at present 80% of textiles are chemical fiber products, which cannot be naturally degraded. Strengthening the recycling of waste textiles can play a positive role in saving resources (oil, land, etc.) and protecting the environment.

China recycling economy waste textile comprehensive utilization professionals to the "China Textile News" reporter provided a set of data: according to estimates, every 1 kg of waste textiles, can reduce 3.6 kg of carbon dioxide emissions, save 6000 liters of water, reduce the use of 0.3 kg of fertilizer and 0.2 kg of pesticides. "Accelerating the recycling of waste textiles is conducive to the construction of resource recycling industrial system and waste materials recycling system, improving resource utilization efficiency and promoting the construction of ecological civilization," the person pointed out.

On the one hand, it has broad prospects, on the other hand, it is limited by reality. Due to the restriction of management mechanism, recycling system, sorting method, technology and standards, the main raw materials of recycled fiber in China are polyester bottle chips and industrial textile waste. The number of used clothing fabrics from urban and rural residents is small, and the overall recycling efficiency of waste textiles is relatively low.

In order to solve this problem, in recent years, around the recycling of waste textile resources, relevant departments have issued a series of policies and measures to boost the construction of relevant systems. From the aspects of consumption, recovery, recycling technology and other aspects, the classification and coding of waste textiles, recycling technology, recycling technology, etc Reasonable distribution of old clothes recycling points and other specific measures.

Sun Huaibin said that in January this year, the national development and Reform Commission and other departments issued the "guidance on accelerating the construction of waste materials recycling system". In order to implement the relevant requirements, taking the recycling of waste textiles as a breakthrough, the "Implementation Opinions on accelerating the recycling of waste textiles" (hereinafter referred to as "implementation opinions") was issued. The implementation opinions set relevant goals for the construction of resource recycling system in textile industry. It is proposed that by 2025, the recycling system of waste textiles will be initially established, and the recycling capacity will be greatly improved. The recycling rate of waste textiles will reach 25%, and the output of recycled fiber of waste textiles will reach 2 million tons; By 2030, a relatively complete recycling system of waste textiles will be established, the recycling rate of waste textiles will reach 30%, and the output of recycled fiber of waste textiles will reach 3 million tons.

　　 High quality enterprises in industrial chain actively "enter the circle"

In the past few years, due to the opaque recycling process, waste clothes were sold or made into substandard textiles from time to time.

　　 "Previously, China's waste textile recycling methods mainly rely on small vendors recycling, residential fixed-point centralized recycling, and so on. The quality of employees engaged in waste textile recycling is uneven, most of them are family members in partnership, which not only belongs to unlicensed operation, but also has no ability to reprocess waste textile as raw materials. After recycling, waste textile is diverted to the corresponding production and processing enterprises. The waste textile disposal end is limited by capital and technical conditions. Many enterprises simply select and use the second-hand clothes and raw materials that can be used, and the remaining part becomes the lowest level waste such as "black material" and "burning material" Yang Yinghong said.

In recent years, with the social attention, economic development and technological progress, many high-quality used clothes recycling platforms and comprehensive utilization enterprises have emerged in the industrial chain.

Small programs such as "idle fish recycling", "flying ant used clothes recycling" and "Jingdong public welfare" ranked first in the used clothes recycling platform. So, after consumers complete the delivery and recycling of old clothes according to the platform process, where are these recycled waste textiles?

Taking the idle fish recycling as an example, the waste textiles recovered from the platform will enter the recycling warehouses of idle fish recycling service providers all over the country. After centralized sorting, about 60% of them will be exported for resale and reuse; About 20% of them enter the recycling enterprises, and they are re made into labor protection gloves, industrial ropes, sound insulation cotton for automobiles, etc; In addition, the leisure fish platform and Service Association, together with domestic public welfare organizations, donated about 5% of high-quality textiles meeting the requirements to poor areas.

This is also true of the old clothes recycling on the flying ant platform. The platform cooperates with logistics companies, public welfare organizations, recycling factories and export factories to establish a recyclable recycling and comprehensive utilization system for used clothes, and processes used clothes in the way of "environmental protection + public welfare".

It is understood that there are three main ways to make use of Jingdong's old clothes, which have been established for five years: first, direct donation, sorting, disinfection, packing and donation of over 90% new old clothes without obvious stains or damages to those in need; Second, environmental protection treatment, relatively old clothes will be disassembled and processed into textile materials to avoid pollution caused by random discarding and burning; The third is public welfare donation, which includes funds from disposal of old things, donation to poor areas, and expenditure on public welfare activities.

The emergence of Internet recycling platform makes the flow of waste textiles more transparent; "Downstream" to improve the efficient utilization of waste textile, some comprehensive utilization enterprises stand out, turning "garbage" into resources.

Sun Huaibin said that before that, 34 recycled polyester production enterprises had passed the industry standard conditions evaluation of the Ministry of industry and information technology, and had formed a number of typical industrial clusters. The production capacity of regenerated fiber has been gradually improved, and breakthroughs have been made in the key process, technology and equipment of recycled polyester, and the construction of standard system for polyester recycling has been completed.

According to reports, Zhejiang Wenzhou Tiancheng Textile Co., Ltd. has a whole industrial chain of waste textile collection, sorting, opening and spinning, and its products are widely used in jeans and other clothing and industrial fabrics. Zhejiang Jiaren new materials Co., Ltd. mainly adopts the unique environmental protection recycling polyester recycling system technology, taking waste polyester materials such as waste clothing and leftovers as the initial raw materials, and after chemical decomposition, the products are widely used in high-end sports wear and other fields. Jiangsu Zhangjiagang Aoyang Woolen Co., Ltd. actively cooperates with international fast fashion brands to develop recycled wool products. The raw materials come from waste clothes, leftovers and waste silk from textile mills. Qingshan waterproof material Co., Ltd. of Lixian County, Baoding City, Hebei Province produces self-adhesive waterproof membrane by using waste textiles. The product has applied for national invention patent and exported to Europe and America.

　　 To perfect the circulation system, efforts should be made in many ways

China's waste textile recycling industry has made some progress, but there are still some problems to be solved. "At present, the industrial chain and value chain of China's waste textile recycling industry are not complete. The sorting of waste textiles is mainly based on traditional manual identification. The medium and high-end complete sets of equipment for sorting, opening and recycling basically rely on imports. The enterprise scale is small, the management ability is not strong, the technical level is low, and the deep processing ability is limited," Sun Huaibin said.

How to make recycling, production, comprehensive utilization and other links really "chain" to promote the recycling of waste textiles further?

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward "promoting green development, promoting the harmonious coexistence of human and nature", "implementing the comprehensive saving strategy, promoting the economical and intensive utilization of various resources, and accelerating the construction of waste recycling system". This is to promote the recycling of waste textiles, is an east wind.

"Some of the policies issued in the past lack specific implementation measures. The development of waste textile recycling industry is in a state of insufficient attention at the top level, the management system is not smooth, and the industry development is not standardized." Yang Yinghong said, "we look forward to more operational policies and measures in the future to support waste textile recycling enterprises and enterprises using waste textile raw materials for production."

China Textile Federation said that at this stage, it will seriously implement the relevant requirements of the "implementation opinions", cooperate with relevant departments to carry out the recommendation of advanced technology, technology and equipment catalogue for comprehensive utilization of waste textile resources, strengthen the industrial transformation of recycled polyester staple fiber, filament melt blown technology and regenerated cellulose fiber maintenance technology, and improve the high-value utilization level of waste textiles.

China recycling economy waste textile comprehensive utilization professionals suggest that to improve the utilization rate of waste textile, efforts should be made from four aspects: first, improve the waste textile recycling standard system, and explore the evaluation of waste textile comprehensive utilization products. The second is to build a multi-channel recycling system, establish a hierarchical utilization mechanism of used clothes, and open up the whole industrial chain of recycling. The third is to carry out technology research and development and product design to form a business model suitable for industrial standardization and sustainable development. Fourth, combining the regional development strategies of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other countries, we should systematically plan a reasonable layout.

Beijing Yizhuang Investment Holding Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yizhuang holding") has made a lot of efforts in exploring intelligent recycling of waste materials in recent years. In the recent exhibition of China International Trade in services 2022, Yizhuang holdings demonstrated its intelligent infrastructure. "Our whole process fine management and emission registration system collects the data and information of waste materials in the park, including waste textiles, through intelligent recycling cabinets and intelligent weighing equipment, so as to ensure full traceability and real-time inspection." fan Jiawei, a staff member of Yizhuang holdings, told China Textile News.

According to Yang Yinghong, Dingyuan (Hangzhou) Textile Technology Co., Ltd. has made outstanding achievements in waste textile recycling in recent years, and has been designated by the Ministry of industry and information technology as the construction unit of "major demonstration project of textile resource recycling". At present, all kinds of technical problems in the recycling process of waste spinning have been solved through five laboratories of physics, chemistry, microbiology, sound absorption and flame retardant. With the development of technology in the future, commercial application will also be realized.

(source: Ma Rui, author of China Textile News)