Fibre Recycling
Have you ever heard of recycling? It's when we take things like paper, plastic, and glass and turn them into new things instead of throwing them away. Well, fibre recycling is just like that, but with clothes!
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Fibre recycling is when we take old clothes and turn them into new clothes or other things. We do this by breaking down the old clothes into tiny fibres, which can then be used to make new clothes.
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This is important because it helps us reduce waste and save resources. Instead of always making new clothes from scratch, we can use the clothes we already have and turn them into something new! Plus, it's a great way to get creative and come up with new designs for clothes.
Video
Puzzles
English
Take a Stance
Task 1: Create a new piece of clothing from the material of two old ones (ask permission from the person who owns them!)
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Task 2: Ask family members of two different generations: How old is the oldest piece of clothing you own. How often do/did you borrow clothes? How often do/did you get clothing from other people? How often do you mend your own clothes? Compare the responses you get.
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Experiments and Challenges
Task 1
With the help of your family, go through the clean laundry and see how many of the items contain recycled fibre.
Currently, the most common recycled fibres include polyester, nylon, cotton, wool and down (feathers). If you are looking to buy clothes, buying items made of one type of fibre is helpful. That’s because it is harder to recycle garments made from multiple materials. And even when something says ‘100% cotton’, it will still have other components, such as labels and sewing threads, which may be made from polyester. So, if you can, help by reusing clothes as much as possible before they need to be recycled.
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Task 2
With the help of your family, find clothing that may not currently be used and see how many items you might want to wear and what could be upcycled or reused.
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A 2023 study revealed that clothing reuse has a 70 times lower environmental impact. The new life-cycle assessment (LCA) commissioned by the European textile reuse and recycling industry confirmed significant CO2 and water savings from reusing textiles compared to producing new clothing.
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Task 3
For one day in class or at a family celebration or event, all wear something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
See who comes up with the most creative outfit and the strangest thing that has been borrowed! Once people start seeing different ways to reuse clothing, they might continue doing it more often.
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Task 4
Every time you get some clothing or footwear that is new to you, see what you can gift, donate, or up/recycle from your current wardrobe.
It has been suggested that around 50% of the items in our wardrobes have not been worn in the last 12 months! Often, this is because we forget we have something, grow out of it, or fall out of love with it. So, rather than have it take up room in your wardrobe – let those unworn items do some good for someone else!
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Weird and Wonderful Facts
Less than 1% of used clothing is recycled back into clothes
By 2030, we are expected as a whole to be discarding more than 134 million tonnes of textiles a year.
The average consumer now buys 60% more clothing than they did 15 years ago.
