Many of us try to recycle our old textiles, but few of us know that they are actually very difficult to reuse, and often end up in landfills anyway. Now, scientists at Lund University in Sweden have developed a method that converts cotton into sugar, that in turn can be turned into valuable products including spandex, nylon, and ethanol.
It is estimated that 25 million tons of cotton textiles are discarded around the world every year. When you add up the different types, a total of 100 million tons of textiles are thrown out. In Sweden, most of the material goes straight into an incinerator and becomes district heating. In other places, it is even worse, as old clothes usually end up in landfills.
“Some fabrics still have such strong fibers that they can be re-used. This is done today and could be done even more in the future. But a lot of the fabric that is discarded has fibers that are too short for re-use, and sooner or later all cotton fibers become too short for the process known as fiber regeneration.”
