Design for Recycling Knitwear: a framework for sorting, blending and cascading in the mechanical textile recycling industry

The problem of difficult-to-recycle textile waste is usually laid at the designer’s door. However, the strategy ‘Design for Recycling’ is not only underexplored in the field of textile design, but the solutions offered are oversimplified and impractical for the complex materials that we have been producing. At the other end of the spectrum, much of the fashion industry has committed to using recycled fibres in their products. However, good intentions are not translating into actions. This is due to a seemingly unresolvable tension between the designers, recyclers and sorters. The circular economy demands ever-increasing quality of recycled fibres. Any decreasing quality is condemned to downcycling or cascading. The quality of fibres is allegedly overcome by accurate sorting. However, the many different methods of blending used by textile designers makes this difficult.

This research has been conducted across the realms of academia and industry and brings together three roles: industry-designer, academic-researcher and industrybased-expert. The methodological contribution of this thesis offers a way of steering the researcher through academic and industry collaboration. Using this approach, the study investigates the mechanical wool recycling system in which acrylic fibres are the main contaminant. Knitted acrylic textile waste falls straight into recycling sorting grades, without any re-use market, and are regarded as the lowest value fibres. Using this type of waste, the research explores the role of blending, sorting and cascading (reframed as spiralling) to enable designers to use recycled fibres and ensure their onward recyclability. Spanning the recovery and manufacture stages of the product’s life cycle, the ‘Design for Recycling Knitwear Framework’ proposes a way of extending the life of textile resources in the transition to a circular economy.