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The second day of the iTechStyle Summit at the Leixões Cruise Terminal was dominated by discussions on new processes for sustainability. Ana Tavares, representing Valérius 360, explained the work the company has been doing to give new life not only to industrial waste, which is its core, but also to pre- and post-consumer waste. A CEO da RDD Textiles apresentou à sala as etapas que compõem o processo de reciclagem e as misturas que têm de momento disponíveis: “fazemos um blend de fibras recicladas com fibras virgens, 50% – 50% em algodão; também é possível com liocel”.
The CEO of RDD Textiles presented the audience with the stages that make up the recycling process and the blends they currently have available: ‘we make a blend of recycled fibres with virgin fibres, 50% – 50% cotton; it’s also possible with lyocell’. Ana Tavares then went on to talk about the barriers they have to overcome, specifically the quality of the yarn – ‘The length of recycled cotton fibre is still shorter than virgin cotton,’ she said, noting the figures of 19-23mm compared to 8-14mm for recycled, and also the issue of contamination.
In order to increase the potential of recycling and obtain better end results, the speaker also mentioned Valérius 360’s efforts to switch from mechanical recycling to chemical recycling, one of the advantages of which is that it allows the properties of the fibres to be preserved. In this case, the Vila Frescaínha company has been exploring 100% cellulose or polycotton blend compositions as part of the be@t project. The idea is to work with bales of cellulose from waste instead of wood.
‘At Valérius 360 we don’t do the sorting, the process is carried out by external partners who provide us with data. What this data tells us is that the majority of products are 100 per cent cotton and 100 per cent polyester. If we focus on these two materials, we’ve already solved a large part of the issue. In terms of colours, the most common are white and black, which also makes the colour removal process easier,’ she shared, demonstrating with graphs.