Marina Textil and the Eurecat technology centre are taking part in the Esmetex industrial research project which is studying a new innovative chemical recycling process for recovering and recycling laminated textile waste anchored in a circular economy approach.
The project is funded by the Business Enterprise R&D Nuclei programme for circular economy projects in waste run by Catalan Trade & Investment and the Catalan Waste Agency. It is to develop technology for generating recycled cotton and acrylic fibres with high enough quality for making new fabrics with a view to recycling pre-consumer waste, cutting the waste generated and reintroducing recycled material into production processes.
The project envisages the reintroduction of 110 kg of recovered cotton and acrylic fibres into the production process over its lifetime and also an 88 percent reduction in the medium term in the amount of laminated textile waste the company generates in various materials.
Rolling out disruptive technologies to drive circularity “makes businesses more competitive because they can manage resources more efficiently, which involves waste recovery, and at the same time helps to generate a constructive impact,” says Frederic Clarens, the director of the Waste, Energy and Environmental Impact Unit at Eurecat.
Laminated textile material is made of two or more layers of textile fabric or other materials such as films, non-woven fabrics, glass fibre fabrics and paper which make recovery difficult.
