In part one we asked the
question "How sustainable is Bamboo fibre" and although all the
claims are out there we see little or no evidence that the crop is being grown
or managed in a sustainable way.
This time I want to look at
recycled polyester or rPET as it's know in the trade.
Synthetic fibres are the
fibre of choice in textiles with 65% of all fibres used being synthetic against
35% coming from natural sources and of all the synthetic fires approximately
70% is polyester or PET of which 60% of PET goes into textiles with 30% going
to bottles.
It's claimed that around
100 million barrels of crude oil is used to make virgin polyester each year,
that means around 70 million barrels goes for textiles.
Nearly all recycled
polyester comes from the bottle stream; the main reason for this is because the
bottle grade is basically not contaminated like textiles. Most textiles will
have some finishing chemical or coating on it or could be mixed with other
fibres such as cotton or nylon that renders it unfit for recycling.
So why recycle it?
1.
It's
claimed that it takes less than half the energy requirement to process 1000kg
of rPET than it would to produce the same amount of virgin polyester.
2.
It stops
it going to landfill where it would take thousands of years to decompose
And how much ends up in
recycling?
We all put our boxes out
each week with a mixture of tins, glass, plastics and paper however America,
one of the largest users or plastic bottles, only recycles around 6% of
all their plastic, the remainder goes to landfill and this is in a country
where the population is relatively well educated and its easy to recycle. If
that could be moved to 15 or 20% think of all the barrels of oil that would
save?
The down sides of
recycling.
1. The problem with making rPET is this: recycling,
as most people think of it, is a myth. Most people believe that plastics
can be infinitely recycled – creating new from old. The cold hard fact is
that there is no such thing as recycling plastic, because it is not a closed
loop. None of the food standard bottles that are collected from you are
used to make new food standard bottles, because each time the plastic is heated
it degenerates, so subsequently the polymer is degraded and can’t meet food
quality standards for these bottles. The plastic must be used to make
lower quality products.
2.
Using
recycled polyester for fibers also creates some problems specific to the
textile industry:
The base
color of the recycled polyester chips vary from white to creamy yellow so dyers
are using chlorine-based bleaches to whiten the fabric.
Inconsistency
of dye uptake makes it difficult to get good batch-to-batch color consistency.
3.
And as
mentioned earlier, most fabrics have a coating, chemical finish or are blended
with other fibres that make recycling the polyester unachievable.
4.
And there
is another consideration in recycling polyester: antimony, which is present in most
virgin polyester, is converted to antimony trioxide at high temperatures, which
as are necessary during recycling, releasing this carcinogen from the polymer into
the atmosphere.
So;
1.
Is
Polyester recycled? Technically no because it isn’t being recycled, it’s being
changed and made into something else.
2.
Is it
helping to resolve landfill issues? Most definitely yes. Polyester takes
thousands of years to degrade and even then will leave residues that could be
harmful.
3.
Is it
cutting pollution? Yes, in both oil usage and CO2 emissions using half of that
used or created by the manufacture of virgin PET.
Anyone who's been reading my linked in posts regarding this subject linkedin.com/cycle helmets will probably guess what this is.
