Selenis Joins Life Politex Project To Pioneer Textile Waste Recycling
Selenis is participating in the Life Politex project, an innovative initiative aimed at tackling textile waste from the fast fashion industry. The current linear model of textile production and fast fashion contributes significantly to textile waste, with global figures from 2020 showing 93 billion m³ of water consumption, 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions and 92 million tonnes of waste.
Despite advancements in recycling technologies, less than 50% of discarded clothing is collected for reuse or recycling, and only 1% is recycled into new garments. Life Politex aims to address this by establishing the first industrial pilot plant for comprehensive fibre-to-fibre recycling technology. The project seeks to demonstrate closed-loop circularity for polyester textiles through a multi-step process:
- Collection and Sorting: Gathering and sorting polyester-based textile waste.
- Mechanical Recycling: Shredding waste into recycled polyester (rPET) flakes.
- Chemical Depolymerization: Breaking down rPET flakes into monomers (ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid).
- Polymerization and Spinning: Re-polymerizing monomers to create new polyester fibres.
- Integration into Textile Production: Using recycled fibres to produce new textile products.
- End-of-Life Recycling: Enabling the recycling of these new textiles at the end of their life cycle.
The project aims to minimize polyester waste by converting it into new fibres and will scale up these processes to achieve up to 80% yield and 99% purity of the monomer Bhet. Life Politex represents a significant step towards achieving a sustainable, circular economy in the textile industry.
