20.04.2023 — Members present themselves, News
Working Group “Textile Recycling – A Challenge
More than a year ago, the EU Commission published its “Strategy for Sustainable and Recyclable Textiles”. In doing so, the Commission provides a framework and vision for a sustainable and circular textile sector, where products are designed to be more durable, reusable and repairable, recyclable and energy efficient.[1]
The challenge for the textile industry is great and thoughts are being given everywhere to how garments can be recycled. It is also crucial to maintain the quality of the material in the many process steps of recycling.
Recycling Atelier since summer 2022
With the Recycling Atelier, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and the Augsburg Institute of Textile Technology (ITA) opened the world’s first model factory for textile recycling in summer 2022, with the vision of high-quality recycling instead of landfill or thermal utilisation of textile residues. The Recycling Atelier is a centre for research and development along the entire textile production chain. In the studio, the individual process steps of mechanical textile recycling are summarised in the environment of a model factory. The concentration of the most important processes in one place enables holistic and comprehensive research along the textile recycling value chain, which has not existed in this form before.
The recycling atelier includes all process steps from material analysis to sorting, preparation and textile processing – from preparation to spinning or direct processing (nonwoven fabric production) – and product design. At each stage, a company from industry supports the research with its industrial perspective and expertise. At the same time, the high degree of digitalisation within the chain leads to the use of artificial intelligence methods through high-quality and modern data collection, processing and evaluation. For example, for sorting – which today is 100% manual – an automated solution is being developed through the use of sensor technology, robotics and artificial intelligence.
With the Recycling Atelier as a catalyst, the strong consortium of business and research is initiating the urgently needed trend reversal towards a true circular economy. The focus of the studio is on upcycling and design 4 recycling. Upcycling is understood as high-quality recycling in which old jumpers are turned into new jumpers again or valuable applications such as durable insulation materials. Design 4 Recycling is the creation of a circular product design.
Learning and innovation laboratory for new processes and products
At the same time, the two cooperation partners Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and the Augsburg Institute of Textile Technology (ITA) are laying the foundation stone here for a novel concept for training and further education with a learning and innovation laboratory. This is how new processes and products are created to develop concepts for a sustainable future.
We are pleased to announce the DTB membership of the Augsburg Institute of Textile Technology.
As a project partner of the Recycling Atelier, we are planning our working group “Textile recycling – a challenge” on 25 April 2023 in Augsburg. Experts will be on hand to discuss current developments and measures relating to the topics of Design4Recycling, Circularity and Durability..
All information on the speakers and topics can be found here: https://www.dialog-dtb.de/events/arbeitskreis-recycling/
Would you like to learn more about Recycling Atelier Augsburg and its partners?
Recycling Atelier and its industry partners – ITA Augsburg (ita-augsburg.com)
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