November 19, 2020
The latest recycling milestone brings new value to an otherwise waste-destined 42 million tons of polyester textiles produced annually. Read the astonishing article below.
CARBIOS a company pioneering new enzymatic solutions to reinvent the lifecycle of plastic and textile polymers, today announced it has successfully produced the first bottles containing 100% recycled Purified Terephthalic Acid (rPTA) from textile waste that contains a high PET content. This result confirms the capacity of Carbios’ technology to recycle textile waste and opens up access to an additional waste stream of up to 42 million tons per year, worth over $ 40 billion.
Currently, mechanical recycling technologies do not enable clothing waste to be recycled efficiently. The few textiles that can be reused, are incorporated into lower quality applications such as padding, insulators or rags. This process is called “downcycling”.
In contrast, the breakthrough developed by Carbios enables polyester textile fibers to be “upcycled” in a high quality grade of PET suitable for the production of clear bottles.
Transparent bottles can be produced from polyester textile waste or from post-consumer colored bottles. But it works both ways – also a t-shirt can be made from bottles or disposable food trays. They succeeded in producing PET fibers for textile applications with 100% rPTA, from enzymatically recycled PET plastic waste.
Carbios’ process enables low-value waste to be recovered and to have a new life in more challenging applications – in short, it facilitates infinite recycling of PET-based plastics and textiles. This innovative enzymatic waste recycling technology is fully in line with European objectives of creating a circular economy and strengthening environmental protection.
Here you can read the whole article.