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The era of mass production has been growing exponentially, especially in the last two decades, and this increase in consumption has caused the textile industry to double its production of items. Currently, the sector consumes 79 billion cubic meters of water and generates 175 thousand tons of textile waste per year, respectively, but only 10% of them are recycled.
The problem becomes even more serious regarding uniforms, which cannot be passed on or reused due to their specific purpose and, therefore, are most often discarded as waste. One of the main challenges for recycling these items is the separation of the different materials used in the production of the pieces. With this in mind, Rhodia, a company of the Solvay Group, has created an initiative that promotes circular economy in the textile chain, especially in the uniform segment.
Rhodia's ecodesign project aims to reduce the industry's impact by making work clothes 100% recyclable. To succeed, there must be no mixing of threads in the pieces, they must be made of the same material, and ideally, they should not have details such as zippers or buttons, which eliminates the need for a separation operation of these items after use.
To prove that it is possible, Rhodia has implemented an initiative to produce uniforms made 100% of polyamide. "It's clothing that was made to become clothing again. Moreover, it's a fabric that provides comfort, with easy washing and drying, produced sustainably, and adjusts to body temperature," explains Eduardo Girote, marketing director of the Solvay Group.
In the process, the used uniform is "shredded" and fed into the chemical recycling process, which depolymerizes and then repolymerizes the Polyamide 66. This polymer can then be used for various applications such as the Engineering Plastics market. In the second phase of the project, these pieces can be recycled countless times, maintaining the same polymer quality.
"Rhodia wants to encourage brands and partners to come together to reduce the impact of the fashion industry and promote conscious consumption. What we want is to create unique pieces that are already made to be recycled as a new piece," says Girote.
Sustainability at Rhodia
Rhodia aims to advance more and more in terms of sustainability in this production chain. In Paulínia, where the raw materials used in the production of textile fibers and yarns are produced, the company has already achieved 96% neutralization of its CO2 emissions, thanks to a series of initiatives and the installation of a greenhouse gas abatement unit, which removes 5.3 million tons of CO2 equivalent from the atmosphere per year, corresponding to the removal of an annual fleet of 1.3 million vehicles. The company's goal is to achieve 100% CO2 neutralization by 2025.
In Santo André, the company's textile base, its industrial facilities operate through closed-loop systems, where there is no water waste or effluent emissions outside the factory. Effluents are treated and recovered in special units for this operation. The company only purchases drinking water from the public network to meet the needs of its employees and collaborators and for activities in the unit's cafeteria.
Over the past few years, Rhodia has also adopted other initiatives to increase sustainability in Santo André. One of them was the installation of a chemical recycling unit for so-called 'production leftovers' of textile polymers, which are recovered and returned to manufacturing lines and become new products. Another initiative related to the circular economy was the decision to remove logos from the packaging of yarn coils sent to customers, allowing them to be used multiple times.
