Teardown and Redesign: dis-and re-assembling textile blends in the circular economy

This paper argues that in order to face current and future sustainability challenges, the fashion and textile industry could use the creative, hands-on skills of its designers to consider problems through the lens of design for disassembly, in order to create new models for impactful practice. Despite considerable progress in the field of materials for the circular economy, blended textiles remain a challenge for effective material recovery (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017). This paper will present the insights from the first half of the PhD ‘Textiles for Disassembly’, and focus on the importance of textile design practice in developing alternatives to un-recyclable blends in the circular economy. Material combinations for performance or aesthetic reasons are a huge part of the textile designer’s work. While technology is evolving to allow us to recycle textiles at higher output value, these innovations mainly concern simple, mono-material, or highly-controlled waste streams (Ostlund, 2015; Circle Economy, 2018). These find their limits when considering the diverse and complex combinations involved in fashion and textiles. This complexity is also a result of the creativity involved in making textiles. The need to consider the end-of-life of resources from the very beginning of the design process is key to developing more sustainable practices (RSA, 2015). Thus, the constraints laid down by recyclability criteria can be creative impulses and challenges rather than limitations (Brown, 2009). This research uses inspiration from architecture, product design, and engineering to develop proactive solutions to un-recyclable blends. Design for disassembly is defined as the combination of materials and components in ways that allows them to be separated for recycling at the end-of-life (ISO, 2016). This approach has been particularly developed as a response to regulation in electronic products. In a context in which it has become evident that all materials should be recovered for recirculation in the same way as the rare and valuable components of these products, how can design for disassembly be translated to the material scale? Textile design practice and material experimentation in the studio have been used as drivers for material innovation which can not only lead to original recyclable materials which combine resources for optimal performance and aesthetics, but also to new future scenarios for the objects and garments these materials are part of. The making element of this research is particularly emphasised as a way of developing a blueprint for circular economy and sustainability strategies for fashion and textile design.