Page 33 from: June / July 2016

33June 2016

I N T H E L A B O R A T O R Y . . .

The global textiles industry is worth
US$ 1 trillion a year while an estimated
95% of worn or torn textiles can be
reused, according to the US wiping
materials, textiles, used clothing and
fibre industries association SMART.
And yet, Americans alone are said
to throw away 70 pounds of apparel
every single year on a per capita basis,
of which approaching 85% ends up
in landfill. This volume, enough to
fill 260 000 trucks, occupies nearly
5% of all available landfill space, the
US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) reports. This translates into the
dumping of some 2 billion pounds of
used textiles, making up some 5.5% of
the country’s municipal waste stream.
‘And this volume is still growing,’ the
group points out, citing a 40% increase
in post-consumer textiles from 1999 to
2009. Global waste textiles are forecast
to reach 35.4 billion pounds in 2019.
Meanwhile, around 15% of textiles are
being recycled or donated to charity.
This volume includes stuffed animals,
carpets and shoes. Some 61% of

clothes recovered for second-hand use
are exported, according to the BIR world
recycling association.
‘The textile recycling industry recy-
cles approximately 3.8 billion pounds
of post-consumer textile waste per
annum,’ the EPA notes.

Experiments with keratin
Researchers at Flinders University in
Australia realised that something had
to change to redress the recycling odds.
A crew was assembled and initiated
several experiments involving keratin,
which most consumers will probably
know from the packaging of popular
hair products. The trials went well,
resulting in a non-toxic, biodegradable
chemical process that dissolves the
wool fibres and can distil keratin from
wool. The work was done ‘with an eye
on potential end uses in the cosmetic,
pharmaceutical and even animal feed
markets’, the researchers note.
Professor Colin Raston explains: ‘After
breakdown using a choline-chloride-
urea solvent melt, the keratin nano-

materials can be further refined and
freeze-dried to form a protein powder,
to be used for a range of products rang-
ing from wound-healing in bandages to
animal feedstock.’

‘Green chemistry’ discovery
He calls the discovery an ‘outstanding
example’ of reducing waste in a safe
way to make use of – and create value
from – an existing resource. Raston
adds: ‘The future of clean technology is
rapidly growing as the cost of producing
expensive substances is offset against
the benefits of low-cost, efficient and
environmentally sustainable recycling
processes such as this.’
The ‘green chemistry’ process is sim-
ple, efficient and environmentally
friendly, stresses project collaborator
Doctor Ramiz Boulos who had previ-
ously demonstrated a similar process to
deconstruct his own hair. ‘Sheep wool
is clearly an abundant biomaterial, with
the wool weaving industry worldwide
discarding tonnes of low-grade, non-
spin wool fibres every year and much

more landfill from wool garments from
the consumer waste steam,’ he notes.
‘Our system makes use of a waste
stream, deemed unsuitable for the
clothing industry, to produce an addi-
tional revenue source.’
He states that the final product would
be ‘highly useful’ for electrospinning
for implantation into a hydrogel ‘which
has demonstrated clear wound-healing
advantages’.

Multiple support
The research at Flinders University
has been funded by the Australian
Research Council and the Government
of South Australia and was further sup-
ported by Flinders Microscopy and the
Australian Proteome Analysis Facil-
ity through the federal government’s
national collaborative research infra-
structure strategy.

Wool with a green
wow! factor
A team of researchers at Flinders University in
Australia has come up with a ‘clean technology’ that
will allow them to give the wasteful fashion industry
a top-to-bottom make-over. They have discovered
how to dissolve waste wool and unwanted woollen
products while distilling the high-value protein kera-
tin and other byproducts.

By Kirstin Linnenkoper

Every month, Recycling International highlights a promising recycling-related research project with a global, technical, economic or social impact.
If you know of an interesting project which meets these criteria, contact our editorial team at [email protected]

For more information,
contact Colin Raston at:
[email protected]

RESEARCH

PIONEER

LED BY

Wool r

ecycling

Flinders Unive

rsity, Australia

Professor Coli

n Raston