The objective with the circular economy is that textiles circulate again and again in a closed loop. This reduces the need to produce virgin materials, saves the Earth’s water and energy resources and saves land for food production. The simplest way to return textiles to this loop is to reuse them. Second-hand shops are a good example of activity that allows a product that has become worthless to one person prolong its life through a new user. At some point, textiles become unusable due to wear. Even textiles that have come to the end of their lifecycle are efficiently returned to circulation in the circular economy.
A circular economy product should be high quality. It must endure wear, use and repeated washing. When making your product, you should choose durable materials, such as cotton, linen, leather and high-quality wool and wool blends. High-quality polyester can also be utilised as a durable material in new products. One challenge posed to the purchasing of materials may be amassing sufficient amounts of uniform-quality materials. The material composition may not be known for discarded textiles received from a consumer. In contrast, the material composition is known for industrial cutting waste, but this type of waste may be difficult to find.
The useful life of a textile product can be lengthened by patterning the product’s surface with various methods. A textile product can be dyed again, giving additional years to a faded yet durable fabric. The attractiveness of a textile product can be increased by printing patterns onto the fabric’s surface, laser cutting it to resemble lace, embroidering or appliqueing it or using raised embroidery to decorate the surface with various patterns and texts. The manufacturer can leave their own unique mark on the product by treating the surface of the recycled textile with various patterning methods. This allows the product to stand out to its advantage from among other products on sale.
The best way to lengthen the life of textiles is by taking proper care of them. An item of clothing washed incorrectly may lose its shape, colour, surface texture and size in one wash. Correspondingly, when cared for carefully, the same product may even endure decades of use. Textile care covers much more than just washing them. Textiles are washed much too often. Instead of washing, it would often be sufficient to air out, brush, steam or even freeze textiles to freshen them up between washes.
