Design for Recyclability: Textiles

This chapter investigates the opportunities and challenges of designing for textile recycling, specifically ‘plastic’ textiles also known as synthetics. Exploring the complexity of textiles across the textile hierarchy from fiber to product, recycling approaches at fiber, polymer, and monomer are introduced. The chapter explains the main two approaches to design for textile recycling, namely mono-materiality and disassembly. It expands on these two strategies by outlining how sorting practices also need to be considered by the designer for the successful recovery of textiles. The chapter concludes by explaining that to truly design for recyclability many stakeholders need to work together if we are to move toward a more sustainable textile industry.