Nora Voisin with AFP // Photo credits: JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN / AFP 12:21 p.m., March 15, 2024

“Good for the planet”, “recycled material”… You may have thought you were making an eco-responsible gesture by purchasing clothing labeled like this from your favorite brands.

After all, those that you throw in the textile waste bins must have a use?

The reality is more complex than that.

The solution for textile manufacturers: recycle plastic bottles into polyester fiber.

This technology, the only one used on a large scale, makes it possible to produce 93% of the recycled materials in our clothing, which means that the majority comes from oil.

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12.6 million tonnes of textile waste produced per year

In Europe, there are 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste produced per year, including just over five million clothes and shoes, according to the European Commission.

Most of this waste is thrown away, or even incinerated, while the approximately 22% intended for recycling becomes rags, padding or insulation.

Very little chance of seeing your old blouse transformed into a t-shirt.

Recycling yarn into yarn is a complex and extremely expensive process.

Used clothing must be sorted by material and color, then removed from its rigid elements such as zippers and buttons.

This is an approach that has not yet been implemented at the industrial level, a technology that is only just embryonic at the global level.

“Less than 1% of the fabrics that make up our clothes are recycled to make new ones,” reveals the European Commission.

Confusing labels

Environmental protection associations are outraged by "a worrying trend" in the fashion sector "to make ecological declarations linked to the use of recycled materials" from their bottles.

If these allow "the industry to reduce its dependence on virgin polyester from fossil fuels in the short term", according to the Swedish group H&M, the fact is that the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) of these bottles could have been used to manufacture other plastic bottles.

However, these can be recycled up to six times, whereas a polyester garment is destined to be destroyed.

“From manufacturing to recycling, it’s: water pollution, air pollution, soil pollution, in short, polyester, even recycled, is not a miracle solution,” criticizes Jean-Baptiste Sultan, consultant at Carbone 4. Beyond all these processes, the problem that arises is overconsumption.