New Composites: Diversifying material sources in a circular textile economy

时装业和纺织业是污染、资源枯竭和气候变化的重要贡献者。为了将人类活动重新控制在地球承载能力的范围内，我们生产、使用和处理纺织品的方式需要经历根本性的转变。这项工作纳入了可持续性原则，例如在产品或材料生命周期的每个阶段减少对社会和环境的负面影响，同时循环作为实现可持续性的主要方法，努力实现资源的循环而不浪费。新复合材料项目旨在增加纺织品设计中使用的资源的多样性，以促进可持续发展目标，同时将可回收性嵌入纺织品设计中。目前，该行业绝大多数依赖两种类型的纤维，棉花和涤纶，这两种纤维加起来占全球纺织品产量的76%(纺织品交易所，2021年)。虽然可以通过使用有机或回收的投入物来改进这些纤维类别，但当务之急是更多种类的纤维应该补充它们的使用。目前对如此有限的资源的关注导致该部门缺乏韧性，正如目前的价格飙升或冲突或其他贸易路线障碍造成的重大中断所表明的那样。该项目旨在解决因关注传统纤维而导致的生物多样性减少所带来的环境和社会影响。目前，替代材料领域正在进行各种创新，例如由消费前和消费后回收纤维制成的材料、从玉米中提取的生物聚酯或从农业废弃物中再生的纤维素。然而，这些创新的构成往往并不完全透明，难以规模化地获得。此外，由于目前的环形设计指南侧重于市场占有率最高的纤维，人们对这些新纤维如何最好地用于设计用于再循环的产品知之甚少。新复合材料项目旨在增加对这些新纤维环形潜力的了解，以鼓励整个行业的纤维多样性。它要解决的挑战是：第一，缺乏关于替代材料的成分、生产过程和可回收性标准的信息；第二，这些材料在成本和性能方面的获取障碍。第一个目标是收集和交叉参考来自材料供应商和回收商的信息，以便将其作为打算使用这些材料的设计师的指导方针。这是建立在项目团队在这一领域的现有研究基础上的。第二个目标将通过将替代纤维与其他可持续但更容易获得的资源混合来实现。第二个目标的实现将采取与英国生产和设计公司合作的一系列原型纺织品样本的形式，展示新材料在用于循环设计的混纺织物中的应用。研究结果将是一套指导方针和相关的物理演示，以强调使用替代材料进行循环设计的可能性。指南将说明如何在尊重现有和新兴回收技术标准的情况下，将这些材料组合成兼容的混合物，以及当组合不兼容的资源时，如何使用可拆卸设计。希望这些成果将能够增加对新材料的吸收，并摆脱污染和单一文化资源。

The fashion and textile industries are significant contributors to pollution, resource depletion, and climate change. To steer human activity back within the limits of the earth's carrying capacity, the way we produce, use, and dispose of textiles needs to undergo radical transformation. This work is embedded in principles of sustainability such as reducing negative social and environmental impacts at each stage of a product or material's lifecycle, alongside circularity as a leading approach to sustainability, which endeavours to circulate resources without waste. The New Composites project aims to increase the diversity of resources used in textile design as a contribution to sustainability targets while embedding recyclability in textile design.The industry currently relies in overwhelming majority on two types of fibres, cotton and polyester, which together account for 76% of all global textile production (Textile Exchange, 2021). While improvements can be made in these fibre categories by using organic or recycled input, it is imperative that a wider variety of fibres should complement their use. The current focus on such a narrow range of resources leads to a lack of resilience in the sector as current price spikes or major disruptions caused by conflict or other obstructions of trade routes have shown. The project tackles the environmental and social impacts linked to the reduced biodiversity which comes from a focus on conventional fibres.Exciting and diverse innovation is currently taking place in the sector of alternative materials, for example materials made from pre- and post-consumer recycled fibres, bio-polyesters from corn, or regenerated cellulose from agricultural waste. However, these innovations are often not fully transparent in their composition and are difficult to access at scale. Moreover, as current guidelines for circular design focus on the fibres with the highest market share, little is known about how these new fibres are best employed in products designed for recirculation.The New Composites project aims to increase understanding of the circularity potential of these new fibres to encourage fibre diversity across the industry. The challenges that it tackles are: first, the lack of information on composition, production processes and recyclability criteria for alternative materials, second, the access barriers for these materials in terms of cost and performance. The first objective is to gather and cross-reference information from material providers and recyclers so that it is accessible as guidelines for designers who intend to use these materials. This builds on existing research in this area by the project team. The second objective will be achieved by blending alternative fibres with other sustainable yet more accessible resources. The realisation of this second objective will take the form of a series of prototype textile samples in collaboration with UK-based production and design companies that shows the application of new materials in blends designed for circularity.The outcomes of the research will be a set of guidelines with associated physical demonstrators to highlight the possibilities of designing with alternative materials for circularity. The guidelines will show ways in which these materials can be combined in compatible blends which respect the criteria of existing and emerging recycling technology, and how design for disassembly can be employed when non-compatible resources are combined. It is hoped that these outcomes will enable an increased uptake of new materials and a shift away from polluting and mono-culture resources.