Fibersort - Manual Sort of Post-Consumer Textiles in North-West Europe

The Fibersort team conducted a manual sorting exercise to catalogue the contents of 5,000 kg of post-consumer textiles. This allowed for data to be collected regarding Fibersort input materials in order to refine the business case for a fibersorting facility.

This report includes a comparison of rewearable vs non-rewearable textiles, as well as an estimation of the amount of post-consumer textiles that have the potential to be used as a textile to textile recycling feedstock. This report also introduces findings useful for brands such as common types of textiles in post-consumer material flows and the potential to recycle these categories. An interesting finding also included is the presence of elastane in the non-rewearable fraction.

Moving forward, these figures will be combined with information about fibre content, end markets and Fibersort performance. These findings will be shared among the Fibersort industry stakeholder groups (Working Group and Producer Network) in the coming months. Stakeholder insights and feedback on this information will be collected and used to further develop Fibersort Project deliverables.