Yu Xinjian, chief engineer of Zhejiang Jiaren New Materials Co., Ltd., introduced a chemical polyester recycling technology called Eco Circle, which can reduce waste polyester clothing to the molecular level and remake it into recycled fibers with quality equivalent to petroleum-based polyester. According to a survey, 46.5% of Chinese households store more than 30 large pieces of waste clothing, and each household buys more than 10 new garments per year on average; based on a population of 1.3 billion and a three-year replacement cycle, the value of discarded clothing exceeds 200 billion yuan every three years.

Key Points

  • 46.5% of Chinese households store more than 30 large pieces of old clothing, and the value of discarded clothing exceeds 200 billion yuan every three years.
  • Eco Circle technology depolymerizes waste polyester into DMT, separates dyes and impurities, then repolymerizes and spins it, achieving closed-loop circulation.
  • This recycling technology can trace raw material sources, has obtained Intertek and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certifications, and is applied at the infant product level.

The technology chemically decomposes recycled polyester products to the molecular level, removes non-polyester materials such as metal zippers and plastic buttons, and through more than 20 high-temperature chemical reactions including crystallization, centrifugal separation, and rectification purification, finally reduces them to dimethyl terephthalate (DMT), which is then made into recycled chips and spun into brand-new polyester fibers, realizing the infinite cycle of "old clothes—new clothes—old clothes." The high-temperature chemical process thoroughly removes impurities and pathogens, and the products have passed UK Intertek and Swiss OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certifications, meeting the health and safety requirements for infant products in Japan and the United States.

Producing 3,000 T-shirts (about 1 ton) using only recycled fibers can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 2.16 tons and save 27,825 kilojoules of energy compared with the traditional petroleum route. The 2017 "China Sustainable Consumption Research Report" shows that more than 70% of consumers have some awareness of sustainable consumption, and about half are willing to pay a premium of no more than 10% for sustainable products, with young people showing particularly prominent awareness and willingness.

In terms of commercial implementation, Jiaren cooperated with the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department in 2017 to recycle old police uniforms; in September, it established the "Shenzhou-Jiaren Polyester Circular Regeneration" project with Ningbo Shenzhou to recycle scraps and defective products from fabric production; in December, it cooperated with Adidas to recycle production waste from its Chinese suppliers Bosideng, Kunzhou Group, Zhejiang Huizhong, and others. At present, the company has cooperated with brands such as Adidas, Nike, Li-Ning, H&M, GAP, and ZARA, using recycled polyester in sports, casual, outdoor, home textile, and uniform fields.

In addition, Jiaren used the special cross-section fiber WAVERON to develop curtains with one-way perspective function, solving the perspective problem of light-colored series. This chemically recycled fiber has a built-in "traceable" gene, which can be identified both by testing the fiber itself and by QR code tracing to the specific recycling date and channel. Yu Xinjian revealed that the current cost of recycled polyester is about 30% higher than virgin polyester, but with technological improvements and breakthroughs in targeted recycling, there is still room for cost reduction.

Source: What happens to the old clothes you throw away|Jiemian News · Originally published on 2018-01-29