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Polyester
Cotton
The purpose of this tool to help understand the steps and complexities of how a mechanical post-consumer recycled yarn is designed. It will help you understand what decisions need to be made and indicate how these effect both the cost and environmental impact of the final yarn. However, the tool has been designed, specifically, for the early stages of the design process only. It is based on general data and cannot be used to replace a full costing nor a full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). If you wish to design a recycled yarn, you would need to complete these in full, together with experts, using the specific data for your yarn.
This tool was created as part of the Decouple, a research project funded by the TRACE partnership by Innovation Fund Denmark. The tool was designed by design researchers from Laboratory for Sustainability and Design at Kolding School of Design together with NewRetex and LCA experts from at SDU Life Cycle Engineering.
Create your own
You can decide to design a mechanically recycled yarn from scratch (called: Create your own). This allows you to make all your own decisions about the recycled yarn you wish to create.
Newretex yarn
You can decide to start with a NewRetex mechanically recycled yarn (called: NewRetex yarn) which can be purchased by companies for production into garments. This allows you to see how the experts at NewRetex have developed this recycled yarn and then adapt or tweak the design for your own purposes
Please note that we have specified that the NewRetex yarn is navy in colour. However, the tool does not provide any options to design the colour. You can find more advice in this FAQ about designing colour for you to use to inform your choices.
Please see questions:
There are many complexities and limitations when designing a post-consumer mechanically recycled yarn. For example, there is limited amount of post-consumer mechanically recycled fibres that can be used in a yarn. If you were to increase this above the 40% limit, it would be very difficult or even impossible to spin in most circumstances.
The ‘context’ box or information in the FAQ should help you to understand all the reasons for these limitations. To access the unavailable options again you must change some of your decisions.
The ‘cost’ barometer within the tool, goes up (higher cost) or down (lower cost) dependent on the decisions you make about the yarn you wish to develop.
This has been based on the expertise and experience of NewRetex who not only have developed their own range of recycled yarns, but have also developed and produced many bespoke recycled yarns together with the industry.
PLEASE NOTE: The costing part of this tool is based on general data. Specific prices can depend on many factors which might not be built into this tool. For example, manufacturing in the ‘down-season’ may enable you to spin a yarn at a reduced price.
A full costing would need to be undertaken to understand the true costs of developing your specific recycled yarn.
The ‘environmental impact’ barometer within the tool, goes up (higher environmental impact) or down (lower environmental impact) dependent on the decisions you make about the yarn you wish to develop.
This was developed together with LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) experts from SDU Life Cycle Engineering.
The data was gathered from the most up to date and available sources. The primary factor considered has been the CO2 emission of the energy used at each stage. A full LCA would also include many other impacts factors, but for the purpose of this tool this was deemed the best way to provide a general overview.
The tool also includes information about manufacturing location (such as where spinning occurs). To calculate the transportation impact, locations of ‘known’ manufacturing areas were selected to make these calculations (see question: What locations did you choose to help calculate transportation impacts?)
Please note: The environmental impact part of this tool is based on general and simplified data. This is not an LCA. LCAs rely on very detailed and comprehensive data obtained from the specific actors in the supply chain, which was impossible for this tool. For example, the tool assumes that spinning is conducted in a factory that uses non-renewable energy sources. However, working with a factory that uses renewable energy could reduce the environmental impact of your yarn.
A full LCA, conducted with experts, using specific data, would need to be undertaken to understand the true environmental impact of your specific recycled yarn.
There are many ways to reduce the cost when designing a recycled yarn. However, this may negatively affect the environmental impact and change the quality.
Cost can be an important factor, but it is also important to consider how the yarn will be used and how durable it will be. You could end up paying less but having to replace the textile sooner.
Some suggested ways to reduce the cost:
There are many ways to reduce the environmental impact when designing a recycled yarn. However, this may increase the cost and change the quality.
Environmental impact is an important factor, but this tool only considers the CO2 emission of the energy used at each stage (except for XX). There are many other impact factors that could affect how environmentally friendly your yarn design is. For example, the longer or the more times your yarn will be used for, the lower the environmental impact per use will be.
Please note: this tool has been designed to provide some indication of the impacts for early decision making. A full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), conducted with experts, using specific data, would need to be undertaken to understand the true environmental impact of your specific recycled yarn.
Some suggested ways to reduce environmental impact:
Post-consumer textile fibres are those that are recycled from waste textiles that have been used by a consumer, such as old clothing. In contrast, pre-consumer textile fibres are those that are recycled from waste generated during the manufacturing process before the product reaches the consumer.
This tool has been designed specifically to explore how to develop a post-consumer mechanically recycled yarn. Therefore, it is a requirement that at least 10% of post-consumer fibres is included.
The tool allows you to choose recycled post-consumer fibres sourced from:
*When you sort post-consumer textiles for recycling you can never be 100% sure of the purity. **If you have access to big enough volumes of post-consumer textile waste, you could have this recycled by NewRetex and use it to create a recycled yarn.
NewRetex collects and sorts many different types of recyclable textiles in Denmark and therefore, it is possible to work with different compositions of textiles waste for yarns. However, to keep the tool as user-friendly as possible, we selected the most common compositions.
The world is not short of textile waste that could be recycled. However, is the textile waste you have access to suitable to be turned into a yarn? Consider:
You can work together with NewRetex to recycle and produce recycled yarn from your own waste for a product that your company will use. For example, you are a laundry company. You can work with NewRetex to recycle all your discarded navy polyester/cotton t-shirts and produce a recycled yarn that you use to manufacture new navy t-shirts for your customers to purchase.
In this tool we do not specify the colour or construction of the waste (it is assumed that it is a single colour and a specific construction). We only provide composition options of the ’typical’ types of waste for you to choose from.
Yes. To do this you can combine:
It is not possible to make a yarn from 100% recycled post- or pre-consumer fibres (see question: Why can I only include a limited amount of recycled content?).
It is not possible to make a yarn from 100% recycled post-consumer fibres nor 100% recycled pre-consumer fibres. This is because when you mechanically recycle textiles back to fibres, the process of ripping the fibres from the textile causes the fibres to become shorter. If you try to produce a yarn with only short, recycled fibres you will face these problems:
While it is true that recycled pre-consumer fibres can be of better quality, it depends on what type of pre-consumer fibres have been recycled (yarn spinning waste, fabric off cut waste, garment waste etc…). In this tool, the recycled pre-consumer waste comes from fabric off-cuts (commonly used in the industry). The fibre length is still shorter than recycled polyester or virgin cotton.
Please note that the recycled polyester would, typically, come from recycled plastic bottles (not recycled polyester textiles). This uses a different type of recycling process. The resulting fibres are very similar to virgin polyester (long and strong) and therefore there is no limit to how much you can include.
In this tool you are limited in how much mechanically recycled fibre you can add into a yarn (see question: Why can I only include a limited amount of recycled content?). Please note that recycled polyester is not mechanically recycled and therefore there is no limit on how much can be included in the yarn (see question: Why can I only include a limited amount of recycled content?)
The limitations are as follows:
Maximum of 40% post-consumer recycled fibres Minimum of 10% post-consumer recycled fibres (You must include some post-consumer recycled content: see question: What are recycled post-consumer fibres? Why do I need to include them?)
Maximum of 40% pre-consumer recycled cotton There is no minimum pre-consumer recycled cotton you can choose not to include this in your yarn.
Maximum of 50% combined post- and pre-consumer fibres (For example: 30% post-consumer + 20% pre consumer + Other fibres)
These percentages are the maximum you can include. You can always include less recycled content.
If you choose to include between 30%-50% mechanically recycled content (post or pre-consumer) in your yarn it is recommended that you blend this with polyester (the strongest fibre type) to help the spinning process and create a durable yarn (see question: Why can I only include a limited amount of recycled content?).
Just like post-consumer recycled fibres, pre-consumer fibres are mechanically recycled by ripping the fibres from the textile. This causes the fibres to become shorter (see questions: Why can I only include a limited amount of recycled content?). However, pre-consumer textiles have not been used by anyone and therefore it is often possible to recycle them into longer fibres. However, the fibres are still shorter than virgin fibres and therefore there is a limit on how much can be used.
There are many types of pre-consumer waste available. For this tool, the pre-consumer cotton would be sourced from manufacturing off-cuts, such as the pieces of fabric remaining when a t-shirt pattern piece is cut from fabric. This type of waste is uniform in colour and textile construction. It not easy to utilise this fabric for sewing into new product because of the awkward size and shape of the pieces, therefore it, typically, gets recycled.
The tool is designed so you can alter how much cotton or polyester content is used in your recycled yarn.
The yarn is made from three elements: First, post-consumer recycled fibres. These are blended with cotton (pre-consumer, organic virgin or conventional virgin ) and/or Polyester (recycled or virgin).
The decisions you make about the quantities of each element forms the overall composition of the yarn.
The tool is designed so you can choose how much recycled content is used in your yarn. You can add both recycled and non-recycled content into the yarn and the amount you choose determines the percentage of recycled content.
To increase recycled content, you could increase the amount of:
Yes. To create a mono-material yarn (a yarn composed of one only one fibre type) you can combine:
Creating mono-material yarns, fabrics and products is a really great way to create textiles that can be easily recycled again at the end-of-use. However, there are a few reasons that you might design a recycled yarn that is blended:
First, when we mechanically recycle post-consumer textiles waste the fibres are ripped from the fabric and this makes them shorter. To compensate we need to add longer, stronger fibres. The strongest fibres are polyester therefore these get selected to produce strong durable yarns.
Second, you need to consider what your yarn will be used for. If the final product requires a very high level of durability (for example, a workwear t-shirt that will be washed many times as very high temperatures) then blending cotton (for its soft feel and breathability) with polyester (for its high strength) might be the best choice to ensure it lasts for a long time.
Finally, post-consumer mechanically recycled fibres are not always mono-material (same fibre composition). They can also be blends with for example 60% cotton and 40% polyester. It is impossible to separate the cotton and polyester using mechanical recycling processes, but it is possible through chemical recycling*. Therefore, if your recycled fibres are already blended then adding more polyester and cotton content will not make the blend any more complex.
*Chemical recycling processes that separate blends are still in the process of being commercialised and are not working at scale.
Creating yarns out of recycled fibres is possible in any colour, you just need to source the correct combination of coloured fibres. When you are designing a yarn from recycled fibres, you can source from two main types of fibres: recycled and non-recycled. The textiles that are recycled for yarns are, typically, colour-sorted into a wide range of shades that can be used. Non-recycled fibres can be dyed to any colour (note: recycled polyester can also be dyed to any shade).
To create a specific yarn colour, you can blend different coloured fibres, just like mixing paint, to produce the wished for shade. This colour blending process produces a ‘melange’ yarn, which has a ‘two-tone’ or ‘multi-hue’ effect, which when transformed into fabric creates texture and interest.
It can be difficult to create solid colour yarns from recycled materials, but you can reduce the melange look by combining fewer colours or less contrasting shades.
When you recycle pre- or post-consumer textiles for yarn production, the fibres are sorted by colour. This means that you can create a coloured yarn without needing to dye it.
However, mechanically recycled fibres are shorter in length and therefore require longer, stronger fibres to help with the spinning processes and to achieve durable yarns (see question: Is it possible to create a 100% recycled yarn?). Therefore, it is necessary to add longer fibres into your yarn. The longer and stronger fibres will, most likely, be non-recycled and these will be dyed to ensure the whole yarn is a consistent colour.
For example, if it is wished to create a navy yarn, you can source colour-sorted navy recycled fibres and blend them with other dyed navy fibres to produce a yarn that has a consistent rich navy colour.
To make a darker or lighter coloured yarn, the easiest method is to add darker or lighter fibres into your blend. This can be achieved by either sourcing darker/lighter recycled fibres (although a restriction might be what is available) or to add darker/lighter fibres in a blend.
For example, navy recycled post-consumer fibres are used to create a navy yarn. To produce a darker, richer navy yarn, it is possible to combine the recycled fibres with dyed deeper navy fibres.
Alternatively, to create a lighter yarn the recycled navy fibres can be combined with white fibres and/or lighter dyed blue fibres depending on the wished for shade. When creating a lighter shade, it is also possible to add non-bleached, undyed or off-white fibres, which would be more environmentally friendly.
Creating a customer colour yarn can be achieved through blending different colour combinations of recycled and non-recycled fibres (see question: How can I create a specific colour when designing a recycled yarn?). When sourcing recycled or non-recycled fibres availability and price are important factors. Recycled fibres are only available in the shades that the industry can sort textiles into, and this is often limited. Dyed fibres can either be sourced from stock services (where you can select from a range of pre-dyed colours) or can be custom dyed to a specific shade.
Stock services are a great resource but if a very specific colour is wished for, this might be limiting. Custom dying can be expensive and if working in small quantities, manufacturers (especially in countries that typically produce in high volumes, such as India and Turkey) might have minimum-order-quantities (MOQs) on how much fibre can be custom dyed for a specific colour blend.
The cost of creating a specific recycled coloured yarn is not built into the tool. However, the tool indicated the environmental impact of adding dyed/undyed fibres into your yarn.
When recycling pre- or post-consumer textiles for yarn production, these fibres are sorted by colour. This means that coloured yarn can be created without needing to dye it.
There are a few instances where over-dying a recycled fibre is needed to achieve a very specific shade. However, this is not the environmentally friendly option and would add cost to the yarn. Therefore, this is not included in the tool.
It is possible to dye recycled polyester fibres. This is because they are, typically, recycled from clear coloured waste plastic bottles that produce a uncoloured fibre that can be dyed.
Yarn count is the technical term for the thickness or thinness (fineness) of a yarn.
There are many different systems for calculating and expressing the yarn count. In this tool we use the metric count system (i.e. 30-1 Nm). The first number denotes how many 1000m is in 1kg of yarn. The second number indicates if it is a single yarn or if it is multiple yarns combined (known as plying).
The most important thing to note for the metric yarn count system is that the bigger the first number, the finer the yarn. The smaller the first number the thicker the yarn. For example, 30-1 Nm is the finest yarn and 8-1 Nm is the thickest yarn in the tool.
Mechanically recycled fibres are shorter than virgin fibres. To help the short fibres to be incorporated into the yarn during spinning, longer and stronger fibres are also added. (see also: Why can I only include a limited amount of recycled content?).
When comparing two yarns: one that is thick and another that is thin, it can be noticed that there are less fibres in the cross-section of the thin yarn. This makes it harder for the short fibres to align and stay together. Therefore, the finer the yarn, the less recycled fibres is advised to include and the more longer and stronger fibres should be used. In this tool the limitations are:
Yarn count and maximum % post-consumer recycled fibres:
| 30-1 | 20% |
| 24-1 | 30% |
| 16-1 | 40% |
| 8-1 | 40% |
Yarn count and maximum % combined post- and pre-consumer recycled fibres :
| 30-1 | 30% |
| 24-1 | 40% |
| 16-1 | 50% |
| 8-1 | 50% |
For example, if designing a yarn with yarn count 24-1, it is possible to add 30% post-consumer fibres only OR a combination of 20% post-consumer recycled fibres and 20% pre-consumer recycled cotton (or any combination up to the maximum 40%).
Please note: there is no limitation to how much recycled polyester you can include (see question: Why can I only include a limited amount of recycled content?)
This tool provides three different production sizes to choose from:
Small production is more expensive to produce but is a good option for smaller customers that do not require big volumes or those wishing to test out a recycled yarn before scaling to larger production. Likewise, larger volumes are for bigger customers that will benefit from lower production costs.
Ring spun yarn and open-end yarn describe two different spinning methods.
Ring spinning involves twisting and thinning fibres using a ring and traveller mechanism, producing strong, fine, and smooth yarns. This is often a more expensive spinning method.
Open-end spinning uses a rotor to collect and twist fibres, resulting in a faster, more cost-effective process, but potentially with slightly lower strength and a fuzzier feel. This is often a more a cost-effective spinning method.
The limitations of this tool are based on the knowledge about current production practices. Currently spinning in Turkey is predominantly ring-spun. Therefore, it is not possible to design an open-end spun yarn for this location in the tool.
In all other locations (Europe and India) both ring-spun and open-end can be chosen.
The locations of recycling, spinning and manufacturing (fabric and product construction), used to calculate the environmental impact of transportation between facilities were as follows:
| Recycle - Collection | Europe | Bjerringbro, Denmark |
| Recycle - Shredding | Europe | Barcelona, Spain |
| Spin | Europe | Porto, Portugal |
| Turkey | Gaziantep, Turkey | |
| India | Panipat, India | |
| Manufacturing | Europe | Kaunas, Lithuania |
| Turkey | Istanbul, Turkey | |
| India | Panipat, India |
Locations were selected based on ‘known’ manufacturing areas for these types of activities and this was used as a basis to create the calculations.
For accurate data on transportation impacts you would need to use the specific locations of each factory you are working with.
Within the tool, there are limitations on the location that production can take place depending on your production size. This is based on the knowledge about current production practices. These limits are as follows:
| SMALL (25 kg) | |
| Recycle | Europe only |
| Spin | Europe only |
| Manufacture | Europe only |
| MEDIUM (500 kg) | |
| Recycle | Europe only |
| Spin |
Europe only (Own fibres) Anywhere (NewRetex fibres) |
| Manufacture | Anywhere |
| LARGE (1000 kg +) | |
| Recycle | Anywhere |
| Spin | Anywhere |
| Manufacture | Anywhere |
Recycling is, currently, always conducted in Europe (see also: Why does the tool only allow recycling in Europe?). Typically, small-scale production (spinning and fabric/product manufacture) is limited to Europe where it is easier to find manufactures willing to work at this scale. Whereas, as the quantity of recycled fibre increases, typically, so do the locations that production can take place.
Mechanical recycling is possible all over the world, but this tool has been developed for NewRetex, who currently only recycle textiles within Europe.
The tool has been designed to help understand how to design a yarn together with NewRetex who can provide recycled fibres and, together with their partners, source fibres for blending and spin these into recycled yarns.
Polyester:
Dye:
Cotton:
Recycling
Spinning
Manufacturing