Recycled nylon
Our recycled nylon is made of pre-consumer waste, in our case yarn waste. When a spinning mill makes nylon yarn from the fiber, there is always a loss of yarn in the process that cannot be used. Instead of being discarded, this yarn can be re-melted and re-spun into new yarn, in other words, recycled.
This means that instead of being made from crude oil, the nylon is made of local spinning mills' waste, thus skipping the raw material extraction and transformation stages, and all the energy consumption that that would entail.
Recycled nylon in general
Recycled nylon is made from discarded nylon-based products, such as fishing nets, carpets, tights, and plastic scraps. The difference between virgin nylon and recycled nylon is that the former is created through a chemical-heavy process using Petroleum (a fossil fuel), and the latter is based on post-consumer-, or production waste. This means that recycled nylon doesn’t require any new use of crude oil, which is a major contributor to climate change.
Top benefits of recycled nylon
Using existing nylon to create recycled nylon has multiple benefits. First of all, it uses fewer resources since the nylon-based products have already been created, secondly, it can be made using waste from landfills and the ocean, making it somewhat of a “nature’s trash picker”. Thirdly, nylon can be broken down and put back together more than once, which makes it recyclable over and over.
Why doesn’t everyone use recycled nylon instead of virgin nylon?
Nylon is neither cheap nor easy to recycle, which is probably why companies prefer the virgin kind. Disposing of nylon-based products properly is an expense that many overlook, for example, it’s way cheaper for fishermen to throw their nylon fishing nets in the ocean instead of paying someone to take care of them in the right, sustainable way.
How is recycled nylon made?
Recycled nylon is, as mentioned above, made from discarded nylon-based products. You break the products down into their individual chemical components, which later can be recombined into “new” nylon sheets. The nylon sheets are then heated up and fed into a spinneret, where they form fibers. The fibers are then woven together into a fabric material. This process is the same for virgin and recycled nylon, the difference being that the former is made from petroleum-derived substances, and the latter is made from nylon waste. So from a sustainable perspective, recycled nylon is the better option.
Recycling nylon-based products is not only a way to spare resources, but it’s also a way to protect the soil, meaning these products don’t end up in nature contaminating the ground with toxic plastic components.
However, the heating process of nylon takes place at low temperatures which causes more or less contamination. This requires all nylons to be cleaned before the recycling process, which of course takes a toll on the environment (water use, spreading of bacteria, and non-recyclable materials).
But seen from a sustainable point of view, we stand firm that recycled nylon is the preferable choice - compared to the virgin option. We’re aware that the textile industry is bad for the environment, but we believe that there’s always a better and worse choice to be made when it comes to choosing materials to work with.