The textiles sector is a big polluter, producing 92 million tons of textile waste worldwide each month, according to Boston University.
Abigail Clarke-Sather, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and her staff claim to have created a system that reduces waste materials into recyclable supplies in just 90 seconds. The Fiber Shredder, a patent pending, has been developed for six years.
” It’s exciting to be both instructors and an investor at the same time”, Clarke-Sather wrote in a media release. It gives me a lot of sense of belonging because I’m a part of a large group of people working to improve the sustainability of our planet.
Clarke-Sather’s history is in civil and environmental engineering, as well as fashion and apparel. She was inspired to tackle conservation issues in the fashion industry by understanding how these two industries intersect.
The machine transforms material into fibers that finally turn into yarn. The Fiber Shredder is still being refined, but the goal is to produce innovative clothing made of recycled supplies.
” Someday, the goal is that you could buy a shirt that is 100 % recycled”, said Hira Durrani, a master’s student working on the project.
The Fiber Shredder can also break down and discard rubber used in products like plastic auto mats, Durrani said. This includes fabrics like polyester, cotton, and fabric.
Other machines usually only reduce fibers, but the Fiber Shredder pulls them off, making the finished product easier to roll into fabric. Income fabric usually overwhelm donation-based prudence stores like Goodwill, leading many empty clothing to end up in waste domestically and internationally. To combat this problem, Clarke-Sather and her crew are working with True North Goodwill to mount a fiber-shredding device to remove excess clothing.
” This task just keeps getting bigger and bigger”, Durrani said. ” It’s great to be a part of it”.
Durrani expressed her hope that eventually the textile business will follow this tech widely, but the system will need to approach more than scraps of material in a minute and a half.
According to Durrani,” The scale of the machine cannot right now handle the amount of textiles that are going into landfills.” ” A little gap exists at this point. However, I have hoped that less of the textile waste will end up in landfills one day if we are able to better design the machine to be able to handle a lot more textiles.
Durrani hopes for the future of the Fiber Shredder, and Clarke-Sather thinks her research might grow to the point where it can be used for business purposes someday.
In the release, Clarke-Sather said,” My advice to researchers and students who want to change the world is to start looking around.” ” There are so many problems. Just pick one and try to figure out a solution”.
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