The Clothing Waste Problem Part 2

Source

Previously in this newsletter I introduced and framed The Clothing Waste Problem as something that is similar to the plastic waste problem. The clothing that doesn’t get resold as second hand clothing in the United States goes abroad to developing countries including the t-shirts printed for the superbowl team that didn’t win. The clothing that no one actually wants, including those who don’t have much, gets shredded into rags. Synthetic fabrics make for terrible rags because much of the benefit we get from synthetic fabrics due to their inability to hold onto water The synthetic clothing, which is mostly polyester, but includes others such as polyurethane, and nylon get landfilled if we are lucky. If we are not lucky they end up in watersheds and eventually the oceans. 

I’ve noticed a lot of consternation amongst people around microfibers getting into the oceans and much of the blame is on synthetic fabrics. Mark Hillsdon wrote an excellent article for Reuters on the issue of microfabrics being pushed into our oceans from washing clothing. 

Although around 50% of our clothing is made from plastic, new research from Italy’s Institute of Marine Sciences suggests that the majority of these tiny threads aren’t made of synthetic fabrics such as polyester and nylon, as had been presumed, but cotton, linen and other man-made fibres such as rayon, which have been so impregnated with chemicals that they aren’t able to naturally biodegrade.

That’s right, the plastic that holds your juice or soda or iced coffee is the same plastic that goes into the synthetic fabrics that we wear. Polyester or PET is the carpets that we install in our houses, hotels, and businesses and it’s the Patagonia and North Face fleece jackets we wear on a cold day. Polymer chemists and engineers have also already started figuring out how to repurpose our clothing waste back into raw materials to produce new clothing. In the first half of this series I wrote about cellulose or cotton fabrics being repurposed, but this week I want to focus on the big synthetic fabric polyester or as I know it, polyethylene terephthalate (PET). 

Companies Trying To Make A Circular Clothing Economy

Jeplan and Axens

Two companies came onto my radar recently that are looking to solve the clothing waste problem, much in the way that Helpsy is attempting to collect unwanted clothing. The first is actually a partnership between Jeplan and Axens. Jeplan is trying to take polyester clothing and turn it back into fibers to make new clothing. Per Jeplan’s website:

We developed the “clothing-to-clothing” BRING Technology™ as a technology allowing manufactured products to be put back into circulation rather than thrown away. Further, BRING Technology™ clothing can be recycled any number of times, making polyester a sustainable resource rather than an environmental burden. We hope this will fundamentally change methods for manufacturing and attitudes toward it in the fashion industry.

We will return dreams and hopes to the fashion world by creating a future where BRING Technology™ reduces the amount of clothing that is thrown away, allowing us to truly enjoy fashion.

Axens is the French chemical technology company that has partnered with Jeplan, a reverse logistics company, to bring the dream of chemical recycling of polyester clothing back into clothing a reality. Because Axen’s technology can turn polyester clothing back into clothing it can also turn other polyesters such as those from bottles or packaging into the filaments that make up polyester textiles as well. Axens is similar to Agilyx or Johnson Matthey in that they have chemical technologies that can be licensed to other companies. I spoke with Romain Roux, an adviser to the Chief Technology Officer and Fabian Lambert the Technology Development Manager recently about their efforts on doing chemical recycling of plastics.

There has been some significant debate over the past few months about chemical recycling of plastics versus mechanical recycling. I think I covered some of the issues in a previous newsletter issue when I wrote about Eastman’s methanolysis plant. The plastic waste problem and clothing waste problems are so big that any additional solutions that can take some volume of the waste is a good thing. If these additional waste solutions can become profitable businesses by producing high quality products that the broader market wants then we could have a virtuous economic cycle around treating our waste like a valuable raw material. 

Romain was clear with me in that he believes that if plastic can be mechanically recycled then it should be as it is a cost and energy efficient process, but often mechanical recycling is not an option. Typically only high quality separated plastic waste such as single stream PET or HDPE have the potential to get mechanically recycled. Separation and having a market for the big six plastics (HDPE, LDPE, PP, PVC, PS, and PET) will overall make it easier for mechanical and chemical recyclers alike to process more spent plastics.

Axens has three technologies available for chemical recycling of plastics. The first two involve conversion of mixed plastics into either naphtha, which is similar to an oil distillate used to make plastics or pyrolysis of mixed plastic to an oil which can be turned into naphtha. Both processes are seeking to make naphtha, which is what oil companies want to make chemicals and fuels. Naphtha is important because it can either be steam cracked to make olefins and platform chemicals or it can be used to make fuel. Having the ability to turn naphtha into whichever the market demands is a nice flexibility to have when dealing with plastic waste no one wants. 

Axen’s third process is a chemical depolymerization of PET with ethylene glycol. PET or polyester made by polymerization of terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol and modern processes are done through making what is known as BHET or Bis(2-Hydroxyethyl) terephthalate as the chemists say (we actually just say BHET). BHET is like an intermediate product of terephthalic acid reacting with two ethylene glycols and then with further heating and vacuum ethylene glycol can be removed and PET is produced. Because many chemical reactions are reversible Axen’s depolymerization process involves putting that ethylene glycol back with PET and cooking it to yield BHET in a soup of ethylene glycol (ethylene glycol is essentially antifreeze). This depolymerization can further enable the purification of the polyester from whatever color it may have possessed to make clear or natural colored polyester that can then be used to make new clothing.

Glycolysis has a few advantages over methanolysis such as being able to be carried out at much higher temperatures under normal pressures, which can help speed up the depolymerization process, and there is no need to handle methanol, which can present a flammability problem. The ethylene glycol produced from the repolymerization of BHET obtained by Axen’s process can then be recycled back and used to depolymerize the next batch in a continuous or semi-continuous process. 

Axens is currently working with Jeplan to retrofit and reopen Jeplan’s PET recycling plant with their technology. The goal of Jeplan is to produce clothing quality PET fiber from polyester clothing and packaging. A true circular cycle if the supply chain and economic models can be figured out. Japan also represents an excellent model for the reverse logistics that need to happen to execute in terms of unwanted clothing collection, sorting, and having the raw material produced from the process be valued at a higher price point compared to PET fiber produced from oil.

PerPETual

Axens and Jeplan are not the only ones doing glycolysis of polyethylene terephthalate to turn plastic and clothing waste into new textiles. I came across PerPETual by bumping into Vikram Nagargoje in a LinkedIn comments section. We talked for over an hour about plastics recycling, the future that he sees in the space of PET glycolysis, and the challenges of running an advanced plastics recycling company.

Perpetual’s goal is to take PET bottles and turn them into polyester filament yarns. All synthetic fabrics start from filament yarns and these yarns are what make a synthetic textile either by weaving or knitting. Rolls of fabric can then be cut into a pattern, stitched, and then it becomes a t-shirt, an upper for a pair of Nike Flyknits, or a jacket. The idea that a Diet Coke bottle can be part of the T-shirt that I am wearing now was somewhat radical a few years ago, but now I think it is our future.

Vikram told me that Perpetual’s glycolysis process is continuous and uses the least amount of ethylene glycol compared to their competition. This enables them to take clear PET flakes from a recycler and turn it into a depolymerized intermediate composition consisting of polyester oligomers, BHET, and some glycol. He showed it to me on camera and it looked a bit like a white hockey puck that he was able to break apart in his hands. 

The big difference between what Perpetual and Axens is doing is the amount of glycol used in the process and this in turn influences the raw materials that they can input into their processes. Vikram told me that their process of turning PET bottles into fibers is highly dependent on high quality PET bales that they buy from recyclers. They can often achieve 80% yields of PET waste to fiber, which is quite good, but if there are too many impurities it can lead to fibers breaking during production. Fiber breaks lead to downtime in manufacturing and downtime means less profitability. Ultimately, what can determine profitability for a factory is productivity. From what I can tell the Axens process is much more flexible on some raw material impurities due to the higher glycol content and better potential to filter out contaminants, which is why they can process recycled PET packaging and polyester clothing.

Vikram told me that the quality of recycled PET from India and Europe is significantly better than other countries. Buying recycled PET from the US just isn’t economical due to the impurities, which lead to low yields and constant stoppage of production. If the United States were to get serious about recycling post consumer PET then we would need to become more serious about making those waste streams have higher purity and secondary sorting.

We also spent some time talking about the economics of advanced recycling and another reason why being in India is economical for his company. Perpetual can buy high quality polyester bottles for $500 per ton while similar quality recycled PET in Asia or Europe will be 20-30% higher in cost. Perpetual can then get those bottles flaked and into their process where they can produce polyester fibers at 600 feet per minute with a 70-75 denier strength. Sportswear brands that use a lot of polyester in their clothing like Nike, Decathlon, and The North Face, are all either interested in buying Perpetual’s fibers or are currently using them in their process. Perpetual is sold out on volume until the end of 2022 for their products and is having trouble meeting demand. These are good problems to have.

Perpetual was cash flow positive when we talked and at the time Vikram was looking to expand capacity due to his slowly growing, but profitable business. If successful, I think Perpetual could quietly lead the world with their advanced recycling efforts.

Note: At the time of my writing this India had been doing relatively well during the pandemic. The pandemic is currently wreaking havoc in India. Here is an article from VOX and one from the New York Times on how you might be able to help if you are so inclined.

Conclusion

Pairing a company like Perpetual with other reverse logistics companies such as Helpsy or Jeplan to turn what we thought was trash into something useful I think is the future. The fact that this is happening in India and is profitable indicates that there are some significant opportunities in developing countries to leapfrog the paths that countries like England and the United States took. These more sustainable opportunities could be used by these countries to forge their own sustainable futures and lead the way where developing countries are struggling to even collect recycable materials.

Tony