Technology 'turns' old jeans into new ones

Old jeans can turn into a new dress thanks to Swedish researchers' eco-friendly fabric recycling technology.

The demand for fabrics has increased significantly over the past decade and is expected to increase by 3% annually, pushing the world to a shortage of up to 5 million tons of fabric by 2020.

In Sweden, the amount of fabric consumed has also increased by 40% in the past 15 years, with an average of 130,000 tons per year.

In this situation, the method of recycling old cloth into a powder to produce new technology of Re: newcell technology is considered a breakthrough. This is not only a way to compensate for the rapid shortage of fabric at low cost but also in particular to minimize harmful waste to the environment and save a large amount of energy.

Re: newcell recycles old fabric into powder and makes new fabric.(Photo: Anh Ngoc).

Recycling for the environment

Re: newcell was founded in 2012 by a research team of the Royal Institute of Technology KTH and a small technology investment company.

Mr. Henrik Norlin, representative of Re: newcell, said in the last 3 years, at the small laboratory located on the outskirts of Stockholm, the company's team has studied and tested the recycling of cotton (cotton) and fabric fibers containing other high cellulose ratios into powder.

The production of conventional fabrics creates many harmful effects to the environment. For example, to get enough denim for a pair of jeans, the manufacturer needs up to 8,000 liters of water, since cotton is usually grown in arid countries and requires a large amount of irrigation water.

Synthetic fibers derived from oil such as polyester have outstanding advantages such as water resistance, mold resistance . but they also lead to a large greenhouse gas produced from fossil fuels.

The dress is produced from Re: newcell's recycled fabric yarn.(Photo: Re: newcell).

However, "how to" turn old clothes into soluble powders as raw materials for the production of fabrics does not require any toxic chemicals and minimizes waste to the environment ", Mr. Henrik said.

For every kilogram of recycled fabric, 3.6kg of CO2 will be reduced, saving 6,000 liters of water, 0.3kg of chemical fertilizer and 0.2kg of pesticide compared to fabric production from the beginning.

Not to mention this technology also brings economic benefits such as reducing the cost of transporting materials and saving land for food production.

From powder to fabric

Re: newcell's powder products are manufactured from old cloth, so the cost is insignificant but high quality.

According to Henrik, tests on fabric made from this powder show no less resistance than the fabrics produced in the conventional way.

This material is used to produce fabrics such as viscose or lyocell for the textile industry. In addition, it is also used to produce products such as medical gowns, diapers or sponges.

The first complete fabric product of Re: newcell is a gold collar dress, elegant design. Skirt made from old jeans.

Henrik introduced a T-shirt made of 100% recycled fabric from jeans.(Photo: Anh Ngoc).

In June, in his graduation thesis, two students from the Textile industry, University of Boras, also created a white T-shirt from 100% of Re: recycled recycled fabric fiber. This shirt was previously a blue jeans.

Their tests have proven that it has good dye permeability, toughness both in dry and wet conditions, as well as with high abrasion resistance.

Mr. Henrik said the current Re: newcell is producing sample shipments. The official production of recycled powder will begin in 2017 with an output of about 3,000 tons a year.

"We expect to soon increase production to 7,000 tons and then tens of thousands of tons within the next few years , " he said.