About a year ago, I researched the most comfortable T-shirt. There were quite a few people who mentioned this specific brand I’d never heard of so I bought about 10 shirts and was sorely disappointed—-I got had by a smart marketer I think.
But a few other people mentioned the Peruvian Pima cotton shirts that are sometimes available at Costco. Generally they show up once per year, in February.
So when they finally showed up, I bought 11. I didn’t realize, until I had these shirts, that I’d never really owned comfortable T-shirts. I’ve worn these every day since I bought them and cannot recommend them enough.
What I have a struggle with: Choice. Buy a plain well-fitting/nice-material shirt, or buy a tent/schmedium that will pill, but has something cool printed on it.
Post-industrial recycling tends to be much more efficient than post-consumer recyling since the inputs tend to be much more uniform. Wasted fiber costs manufacturers a lot of money -- more efficient operation will go straight to their bottom line.
In other words, this is a case where governments should focus on research, not regulation. Manufacturers may not have the money to do the research themselves, but are highly incentivized to incorporate the improvements if somebody else figures it out for them.
I visited the local waste processing plant to learn about the basics in general and have some insights on what could I do for better recycling.
Clothing is the worst offender here. Impossible to recycle. The quality would not be good enough and the price is too high. It is a huge waste of resources.
Upcycling (e.g. repurposing) works with some materials, though, however, with very low efficiency.
Europe is moving towards reducing fast fashion therefore. This is a good thing in general, but I don't see this change in the US / Asia. And very slowly also in Europe.
Manufacturers are already highly incentivized to reduce material waste. It’s their profit margin! Unless of course it’s so cheap and abundant it doesn’t matter.
And the article didn’t identify an externality concern either.
Wait until they hear how much source code is thrown away to make software! I guess that's a bit ephemeral, but still probably similar in a lot of industries.
Clothes are weird shaped, weaves are rectilinear, it's a pretty tricky problem to solve. Unless someone manages to invent a non-rectilinear robot loom or something?
no, it doesn't, article doesn't provide any proof for such claim other than that old T-Shirts are not recycled, that's like saying 70% of every car goes into waste before you even buy it just because new car doesn't use recycled resources from old cars
"“We took a closer look at what happens to the fibres in a cotton T-shirt over the course of two consecutive life cycles. We combined a material flow model with a life cycle assessment,” said Ahmed."
very confusing article, practically whole article talks about using recycled old garments/T-shirts and not about scraps during T-shirt production
The paper relies heavily on another paper (https://circulareconomyjournal.org/ojs/JoCE/article/view/250) for estimates of upstream material losses. That paper attempted to quantify production stage losses from raw fiber, into fabric, and then into apparel by surveying factories in Bangladesh for their mass input/outputs for different production stages.
About a year ago, I researched the most comfortable T-shirt. There were quite a few people who mentioned this specific brand I’d never heard of so I bought about 10 shirts and was sorely disappointed—-I got had by a smart marketer I think.
But a few other people mentioned the Peruvian Pima cotton shirts that are sometimes available at Costco. Generally they show up once per year, in February.
So when they finally showed up, I bought 11. I didn’t realize, until I had these shirts, that I’d never really owned comfortable T-shirts. I’ve worn these every day since I bought them and cannot recommend them enough.
Friends don’t let friends wear crappy cotton.
What I have a struggle with: Choice. Buy a plain well-fitting/nice-material shirt, or buy a tent/schmedium that will pill, but has something cool printed on it.
Or you could find a local tailor to adjust any shirt to be well-fitting on you.
That's a good idea. I think in this case, the poor fit also correlates with poor material, which is beyond their capability.
Now I'm not sure if I should believe you or if you're a smart marketer yourself.
Plus, why in the world would you blindly buy ten T-Shirts you don't know twice?
i think they would probably shill for something more achievable than a shirt you can sometimes get once a year at costco, haha
In the near future our AI assistants will talk with each other and check if the source can be trusted or not
Post-industrial recycling tends to be much more efficient than post-consumer recyling since the inputs tend to be much more uniform. Wasted fiber costs manufacturers a lot of money -- more efficient operation will go straight to their bottom line.
In other words, this is a case where governments should focus on research, not regulation. Manufacturers may not have the money to do the research themselves, but are highly incentivized to incorporate the improvements if somebody else figures it out for them.
I visited the local waste processing plant to learn about the basics in general and have some insights on what could I do for better recycling.
Clothing is the worst offender here. Impossible to recycle. The quality would not be good enough and the price is too high. It is a huge waste of resources.
Upcycling (e.g. repurposing) works with some materials, though, however, with very low efficiency.
Europe is moving towards reducing fast fashion therefore. This is a good thing in general, but I don't see this change in the US / Asia. And very slowly also in Europe.
Manufacturers are already highly incentivized to reduce material waste. It’s their profit margin! Unless of course it’s so cheap and abundant it doesn’t matter.
And the article didn’t identify an externality concern either.
I would be interested to know how much of that is scrap from cutting out patterns. That should be very easy to recycle, I'd think.
Wait until they hear how much source code is thrown away to make software! I guess that's a bit ephemeral, but still probably similar in a lot of industries.
Clothes are weird shaped, weaves are rectilinear, it's a pretty tricky problem to solve. Unless someone manages to invent a non-rectilinear robot loom or something?
no, it doesn't, article doesn't provide any proof for such claim other than that old T-Shirts are not recycled, that's like saying 70% of every car goes into waste before you even buy it just because new car doesn't use recycled resources from old cars
"“We took a closer look at what happens to the fibres in a cotton T-shirt over the course of two consecutive life cycles. We combined a material flow model with a life cycle assessment,” said Ahmed."
very confusing article, practically whole article talks about using recycled old garments/T-shirts and not about scraps during T-shirt production
That's not what the article, or the paper backing it claims.
The paper (https://circulareconomyjournal.org/ojs/JoCE/article/view/250) is about quantifying the environmental impact of material losses that happen in a typical scenario, including a single full recycle (as opposed to reuse).
The paper relies heavily on another paper (https://circulareconomyjournal.org/ojs/JoCE/article/view/250) for estimates of upstream material losses. That paper attempted to quantify production stage losses from raw fiber, into fabric, and then into apparel by surveying factories in Bangladesh for their mass input/outputs for different production stages.