What “60% recyclable” actually means in a fabric order
Recyclable is a property of the fibre. Recycled is a property of the supply chain. Buyers mix the two up constantly, and it costs them at the audit stage.
More than sixty percent of the qualities we run are recyclable. That sentence is true, and it is also the most misread line on our website. So it is worth being precise about what it does and does not promise.
Recyclable is not recycled
A recyclable fabric is one whose fibre can, in principle, re-enter a recycling stream at end of life — mechanically for polyester, chemically for viscose and Tencel™. A recycled fabric is one already made from post-industrial or post-consumer waste. A 100% polyester quality is recyclable whether or not a single gram of recycled feedstock went into it.
If your buyer’s brief says "recycled content", a recyclable quality does not answer it. You need the traceability certificate for the yarn, not the fibre family.
Three questions worth asking
- Which fibre stream does it return to — mechanical or chemical?
- Is the trim, lining and interlining also mono-material, or will the garment be hard to separate?
- Does the dye chemistry survive the recycling process, or does it need to be stripped first?
The number on the website is a starting point for a conversation, not a compliance answer.
Where recyclability genuinely helps is at the design stage. If the cloth, the thread and the trim are all polyester, the garment has a second life. If the cloth is polyester and the trim is nylon, it usually does not. That decision is made months before anyone asks us for a certificate.
We are happy to be held to the sixty percent. We would simply rather be asked which sixty.
Working on a quality?
Send the reference and the end use. We will send back cloth, not a picture of cloth.
