Recycling Textile and Plastic Waste (Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles) PDF
Preview Recycling Textile and Plastic Waste (Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles)
Recycling Textile and Plastic Waste edited by A Richard Horrocks ••••• .....- r., • ••••~• Q• •• ••••• BTTG The 1extile Institute WOODHEAD PUBLISHING LIMITED RECYCLING TEXTILE AND PLASTIC WASTE edited by A Richard Horrocks Bolton Institute .•..•..• T•, •• ••••~• O• •• ••••• BTTG TIle 1extile Instinne WOODHEAD PUBLISHING LIMITED Cambridge England Published by Woodhead Publishing Limited, Abington Hall, Abington, Cambridge CB21 6AH, England www.woodheadpublishing.com First published 1996 © 1996, Bolton Institute/British Textile Technology Group Conditions of sale All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-85573-306-0 Printed by Victoire Press Ltd, Cambridge, England CONTENTS Section 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Recycling and Recovery Strategies A Richard Horrocks 3 Municipal Waste Jim Cunliffe 17 Section 2: WASTE MINIMISATION 27 Turning Environmental Concern into Real Profit Clive Jeanes 29 Reclaimed Fibres, the Source and Usage Andrew Simpson 33 Industrial Waste Water Minimisation and Treatment Allan K Delves 43 The Fibre Industry and Waste Management Nello Pasquini 51 Recycling of Plastic Fibres and Packaging Waste J A(Tony) Horrocks 61 Key Lessons for Plastic Bottle Recycling Andrew Wood 77 Section 3: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 87 Nonwovens from Recycled Waste AlfndWmu 89 Recycling Zeftron Carpets Ian Wolstenholme 101 Cotton Waste Reclamation Ferdinand Leifeld 107 Recycling in the Far East Nasim A Minhas 121 The Production of High Tenacity Tapes from Waste Polypropylene Subhas Ghosh & A Richard Horrocks 127 The Role of Process Stabilisers in Recycling Polyolefins H(Heinz) Herbst, K Hoffman, R Pfaendner and F Sitek 135 Recycling Carbon Fibre-PEEK Composites A(Alan) K Wood, R J Day and S F Pang 145 Section 4: ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS 153 The Eco Movement Brian McCarthy 155 Waste - The Politics and Philosophies Barry G Hazel 161 Dyestuffs: The Myths Explored and Problems Aired Brian Burdett 165 Environmental Husbandry Simon Kent 173 PREFACE The current interest in the environment is a consequence of a number of individual factors which have not only become more understood and quantifiable but have been recognised as having synergistic effects upon the biosphere and its ability to sustain life. Ofparticular relevance are the relationships between the depletion of ozone in the upper atmosphere and the increased use of chlorine and fluorine-containing compounds (CFCs), the increased release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and its affect on climate, the rapidly increasing world population and its consequences on other species and their ability to survive and, of course, the impact of modem technology which is able to consume greater resources, to produce large quantities of waste and generate consumer products which may have very short useful lifetimes and be difficult to recover and recycle from waste streams. Each of these interactions has major consequences for the textile and related industries including the plastic producing sectors whether from the point ofv iew of the ability to sustain production of natural raw materials (eg cotton, wool, wood pulp,etc.,), the need to have economically and environmentally efficient processing sectors or the requirement that products must be designed with recovery and recyclability in mind. During April 1995 at Bolton, UK the first major and recent conference on the environmental aspects of the textile and related industries was held to examine and discuss the current position of textile and related plastics wastes. The conference, entitled "Wealth from Waste in Textiles," was organised jointly by Bolton Institute and the British Textile Technology Group with support from the Textile Institute and the Department of Trade and Industry. The two day conference attracted over 130 delegates from across Europe in the main, with some delegates travelling from the USA and the Far East. Almost thirty papers were presented which covered the general problems of waste production and its minimisation to the more specialised problems facing particular processors of virgin and waste raw materials as well as textile finishers and the advances made in effluent reduction. This text presents nineteen edited papers which together give a picture of the challenges facing the textile and plastics industries.Both must increasingly be able to demonstrate environmentally acceptable practices while working within a framework of economic viability. Thus they must be able to make products which consumers will buy based on both price and ecological factors. The papers selected will initially overview the magnitude and consequences of excessive waste production, then proceed to discuss waste minimisation strategies and practices, focus on selected areas where recent scientific and technological advances have been made and finally set the problems within the context of current public perceptions, politics and regulations. It is hoped that, although the nineteen papers are not meant to provide a completely comprehensive treatment of all aspects of textile and plastics waste problems and challenges, they will present a series of snapshots which create an overall picture of the current status of waste minimisation, waste recovery and waste recycling across the respective sectors. A Richard Horrocks Bolton Institute, Bolton, January 1996 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS lbis edited text could not have been produced without the contributions from each of the respective authors to whom I am grateful for generating the basic manuscripts. However, the creation of the manuscripts required the Ecotextile conference in the first place which took place at Bolton in the Bolton Moat House on 11th and 12 th April 1995. The major organisation of the conference, "Wealth from Waste in Textiles," was undertaken by Christine Wilkinson and Dinah Wharton of the British Textile Technology Group, Leeds and their input in this respect and their contribution to the success of the event must be acknowledged. The preparation of the original conference texts and the redrafting of each paper into the current form has required considerable efforts from my colleagues in the Research Office at Bolton Institute. I would like to thank Lorna Hollingum for her work prior to the conference in liaising with authors and ensuring that manuscripts arrived in time for the conference and also acknowledge the work of Diana Page for her painstaking efforts in word processing the edited manuscripts to the standards necessary for their formal publication. vi LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Mr Brian Burdett, BTTG, Shirley House, Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester Mr Jim Cunliffe, Bolton MBC, Milton House, Wellington Street, Bolton, Lancs Mr Allan Delves, Du Pont Nylon, Ermin Street, Brockworth, Gloucester, Glos Professor Subhas Ghosh, Institute of Textile Technology, Charlottesville, VA 22902, USA Mr Barry Hazel, Textile Finishers Association, Reedham House, 31 King Street West, Manchester Dr Heinz Herbst, Ciba Additives GmbH, Nibelungstrasse 440, D-64686, Lautertal, Germany Professor A Richard Horrocks, Bolton Institute, Deane Road, Bolton, Lancs Mr Tony Horrocks, Norplas, Norton House, Stowupland Road, Stowmarket, Suffolk Mr Clive Jeanes OBE, Milliken Industrials Ltd., Gidlow Lane, Wigan, Lancs Mr Simon Kent, Parkland Manufacturing CO.,Meltham Road, Huddersfield, W. Yorks Dipl Ing Ferdinand Leifeld, Triitzschler GmbH and Co. KG, Duenstrasse 82-92, D W4050 Munchen Gladbach 3 , Germany Mr Brian McCarthy, BTTG, Shirley House, Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester Mr Nasim Minhas, Haroon Nasim Textile Mills Ltd., Al Faisal Place, Shahrah-e-Quaid e-Azam, Lahore, Pakistan Mr Nello Pasquini, Montell Polyolefins, Woluwedal 24, 1932 Zaventem, Belgium Mr Andrew Simpson, Wellhouse Wire Products, Ravenscroft Way, Barnoldswick, Colne, Lancs Mr Alfred Watzl, Fleissner GmbH, Wolfsgartenstr 6, 6 3329, Egelbach, Germany Mr Ian Wolstenholme, BASF pIc, Willow Court, 34 Thermaston Lane, Leicester, Leics Mr Andrew Wood, EVC Components Ltd, Chester Road, Helsby, Cheshire Dr Alan K Wood, Material Science Centre, UMIST & University of Manchester, Grosvenor Street, Manchester VB RECYCLING AND RECOVERY STRATEGIES A Richard Horrocks Introduction The concept and practice of recycling has been a well-established part of the textile industry since the first industrial revolution. Historically, the waste reprocessing industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire, for example, reflected their respective interests in cotton and wool textile manufacture. Elements of these interests remain today but the impact of man-made fibres has introduced variety and blends to the industry. While basic textile and clothing manufacturing industries generate associated waste reprocessing sectors, there has been and continues to be a recycling industry associated with used clothing and other textiles or "used rags" . In post-industrial EU, which has significantly reduced manufacturing sectors and hence associated "new rag" reprocessing industries, the growth in consumerism has assured that "old rag" recycling is or could be a large industry, often generated by charitable institutions and driven by exports to the less developed areas of the world. Table 1 lists and Figure 1 schematically shows the traditional and well-established recycling routes. The strategy behind these traditional reprocessing industries was and still is purely one of wealth creation from waste and, as an industry, the textile and clothing sectors have always been able to demonstrate a degree of environmental sustainability in terms of fibre re-usage. In recent years there has been a shift to SE Asia of these traditional textile and garment making waste reprocessing industries as the main textile manufacturing base has shifted to that region. Of more recent importance to the European and US textile economies has been the emergence of new waste recycling technologies based on the values of waste synthetic fibres, high performance textiles and composite materials and recycled polymers as synthetic fibre precursors. The second half of Table 1 lists these. The often reversibility of synthetic fibre production sequences has enabled technologies based on depolymerisation and monomer (cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0)(cid:0) regeneration to be developed; this has especial significance where sources of used textiles comprise large amounts of a single fibre type such as polyamide floorcoverings. Similarly, the usefulness of some synthetic fibre-forming polymers like polyester (PET) in other markets such as beverage bottles, has provided impetus for improved plastic recycling technologies in the packaging sectors because of their potential as raw materials for synthetic fibres. Finally the complexity and value of many technical and industrial textiles has created opportunities for their effective recovering and recycling. Some companies like Gore, for example, offer customers the service of accepting and disposal of used Goretex garments. (1) This trend will probably increasingly occur for sophisticated garments and textiles in the contract and domestic sectors. 3
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