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Chapter

Understanding Denim Recycling:

A Quantitative Study with
Lifecycle Assessment
Methodology
Sedef Uncu Akı, Cevza Candan, Banu Nergis
and Neslihan Sebla Önder

Abstract

Global denim jeans market size is over 70 billion dollars today, and it continues
to grow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2%. As a reflection of this
annual growth, systems’ waste generation also increases. Textile waste including
denim accounts for nearly 5% of all landfill space, according to the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). Today, efficient recycling technologies are essential to
revive the waste generated. Recycling technologies potentially represent a new way
to engineer products. This book chapter analyzes these different recycling technol-
ogies and their advantages and challenges and concentrates on denim fabrics pro-
duced with recycled content. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is adopted
to quantify and compare the environmental impact of recycled denim fabrics. The
chapter concludes the challenges and the future of recycling, creating systems, and
engineering of waste. The view of seeing waste as a raw material potentially repre-
sents a new opportunity to design circular systems.

Keywords: denim recycling, textile waste, life cycle assessment,

design for sustainability, circularity

1. Introduction

Denim is one of the most prevalent fabrics worldwide, and therefore the
environmental degradation associated with denim jean production is highly danger-
ous as the volume of jeans produced and used by consumers today is humongous.
Also, as cotton is the fundamental building block for denim production, denim
represents a mainspring for cotton consumption. Considering the fact that the textile
and apparel industry in general is pressured to increase the recycling potential for
cotton to cover contemporary and prospective market demands, the use of recycled
materials (fiber, yarn, and fabric) in the production of new denim products has
become an area of great interest. The decision to use recycled materials in products
occurs during design and product development, and it continues throughout the
manufacturing processes. The most important requirements for recyclable denim

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Textile Industry and Waste

designs are monomaterials, elimination of toxic substances, modular manufacturing

for ease of removal or exchange, easily compatible materials, and labels or codes
that can be recycled.
The environmental impact of denim products, during manufacture, use, or
disposal, can be evaluated by looking at the different phases of the product’s life
cycle and taking action at the phases where it will be most effective to reduce the
impact. However, the lifecycle of a product is long and complicated, covering many
areas with many people involved in each phase [1]. There is a variety of voluntary
and mandatory tools which help achieve this objective. These include economic
instruments, bans on certain substances, environmental labeling, voluntary agree-
ments, product design guidelines, etc. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is
one of the aforementioned tools, and within the frame of this chapter, it is adopted
to quantify and compare the environmental impact of recycled denim fabrics. But
before that, the global denim market, environmental impacts of denim
manufacturing, sources of denim waste, and recycling processes currently used in
textiles and apparel today are also discussed in this chapter.

2. An overview of the global denim market

Denim is a type of sturdy cotton twill woven fabric with a characteristically

diagonal ribbing known for its use in the form of jeans and other clothing all across
the world. Originally used for workers’ clothes, denim has entered the world of high
fashion for a long time, and this has urged the industry to produce innovative denim
with different fibers including lyocell, bamboo, viscose, rayon, polyethylene tere-
phthalate, and elastane. Also, several types of washes have been introduced, such as
stonewash and stoneless wash, acid wash, moon wash, monkey wash, and enzymes
which have been used because of their environmental-friendly nature in compari-
son with hypochlorite and pumice stones [2].
Rising casualization of clothing all over the world, together with the availability
of high-quality, cost-effective denim products, has contributed to the growth of the
market over the years. E-commerce is the other factor which has a positive influ-
ence on the denim market’s growth. In addition, brands have started to reinforce
their commitments to responsible production efforts and launched more sustainable
collections to the market, which has dramatically increased new retail products
described as “sustainable” since 2017. Orta Anadolu, for example, introduced its
organic cotton production of denim fabrics in 2006 and a capsule collection without
virgin cotton in 2018. Similarly, Diesel launched a sustainable capsule collection
with Coca-Cola [3].
The global denim market is segmented into North America (NA), Europe (EU),
Asia-Pacific (APAC), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South America (SA).
The major companies operating in the global denim market are Levi Strauss & Co.,
VF Corporation (with renowned brand names of Lee and Wrangler), Diesel SpA,
Gap Inc., Hennes & Mauritz AB, Inditex, and PVH Corp., and Tommy Hilfiger
Licensing LLC. The jean market is a highly fragmented market, with a strong
presence of local and global players operating all over the world. Thus, to sustain
their positions in the market, the active players are bringing innovation in their
product offering, in order to cater to changing consumers’ fashion lifestyle [4].
Also, they have been focusing on social media platforms as well as online distri-
bution channels for their marketing and branding activities so as to attract more
customers. Denim manufacturers, however, appear to focus on acquisitions,
expansions, and collaborations with mostly startup companies to gain a significant
market share [2–3].

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

In 2019, the global denim market was valued at approximately 90 billion US

dollars and is expected to reach a value of around 107 billion US dollars by 2023 [5].
The global denim jean market size, on the other hand, was valued at USD 64.62
billion in 2018, and it is estimated to expand further at a compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) of 6.81% from 2019 to 2025 [6]. The Asia-Pacific region led the market
in 2019, which was followed by North America, Europe, South America, and the
Middle East as a response to the introduction of global brands and an emphasis on
premium denim. Japan, China and India are expected to lead the region through
2024 as a result of the countries’ rise in promotional activities within the denim
market [2, 4].
According to the World Denim Fabric Foreign Trade Report published by the
Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters Association (ITHIB), global denim
fabric exports increased by 5.1% in 2018 and reached approximately 5 billion US
dollars. The top five countries performing most denim exports are China (42%
share of total exports), Pakistan (11.7% share of total exports), India (8.2% share of
total exports), Hong Kong (7.4% share of total exports), and Turkey (6.8% share of
total exports). It is stated that there is a strong growth in the denim production in
Bangladesh and Vietnam, although these countries are mostly importing denim
fabric [7].
Europe, the United States, and Japan are the biggest consumers of denim,
whereas China and India, being relatively younger economies, are witnessing a
steady rise in demand for denim. In 2018, men’s wear segment accounted for the
largest market share of more than 55%. It is forecasted that the segment will retain
its leading position over the upcoming years mainly because of the improved stan-
dards of living and demand for trendy fashion apparels. Women’s wear segment is,
on the other hand, expected to register the fastest compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 7.25% from 2019 to 2025. This growth is attributed to the high product
demand, especially in emerging countries. In addition to that, constant product
innovation in this segment is also expected to drive the growth further [2, 6].

2.1 Environmental impacts of denim processing

It is estimated that producing a pair of jeans consumes around 2900 liters of

water and large amounts of chemicals and energy. If this is multiplied by the
number of jeans produced globally, one can get an idea of the enormous contribu-
tion of wastewater and harmful gases by denim industry to the environment [8, 9].
Indigo dye is one of the organic colorants used to color textiles, paper, leather,
and plastic and for many applications such as cosmetic and photochemical produc-
tion. Unfortunately, textile effluents containing indigo dye and other dye types
make water toxic and harmful for human and animal consumption, which causes an
imbalance in different aquatic ecosystem food chains [10]. The use of synthetic
indigo and sulfur dyes also presents serious effluent problem. Bearing in mind that
majority of warp dyeing for denim uses indigo and sulfur dyes, the environmental
impacts of denim processing can be classified into three main categories:

• Water pollution: dyeing and finishing effluent discharge in water bodies

• Air pollution: cotton dust, abrasives, and chemicals found in air

• Solid waste (sludge)

As is well-known, denim washing is imparted to fabric to improve the softness,

comfort, and most importantly achieving a variety of looks such as a faded or

3
Textile Industry and Waste

worn-out appearance. Pumice stone is used to stonewash denim garments. The

stone gets abraded during the process and becomes powdered; part of it remains in
the liquor, and part of it sticks to the garment. A sizeable amount of water is
required for repeated washing cycles to remove the deposited pumice from the
denim. The effluent and pumice dust lead to environmental pollution. Sandblasting
is a mechanical finish which uses sand containing silica. The minute silica dust
spreads in air, it poses serious respiratory disease such as silicosis [10].
Micro sanding is another finish which pollutes the environment. In the case of
chemical washing involving the use of sodium hypochlorite or potassium perman-
ganate, the effluent contains chlorinated organic substances which cause severe
impacts to the environment, and the bleaching chemicals are harmful to human
health. Acid wash uses both pumice stone and chemicals, namely, sodium hypo-
chlorite or potassium permanganate, and it does not require water but leads to
pollution through the effluent having pumice dust and residual manganese which
are hazardous [11–12].
Despite all these setbacks of the denim processes summarized above, various
suitable treatment processes have been developed and employed for the dyeing
effluent on the basis of the nature and complexity of the dyes and chemicals present
in denim. Fortunately, many denim companies and their suppliers have been striv-
ing hard to embrace greener methods such as laser processing and nano bubble
ozone washing machines and are also making effort to develop new techniques of
producing jeans, as a part of their business strategies to preserve the environment.
They have also understood the importance and the need to build a sustainable
business [12–14].

2.2 Sources of denim waste

It is considered that sustainable material management is a precursor of circular

economy, which promotes recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing. It was estimated
that around 65 billion tons of raw materials were processed by the industrial system
at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, and this quantity is
expected to reach about 82 billion tons by the end of 2020. Therefore, in the last two
decades, circular economy (CE) is gaining growing global consideration as the new
development model which is capable of influencing the existing production and
consumption model [15]. Within that concept, waste is classified on the basis of
generation as pre-consumer textile waste, post-consumer textile waste, and indus-
trial textile waste. Pre-consumer waste is the remaining production processes in the
industry which includes raw material to finished products ready for market. This
may include offcuts, shearing, selvedges, b-grade garments, export surplus, etc.
which are homogenous and clean in nature to be used for other purposes. The waste
under this class has great potential for reuse and recycling. The post-consumer
textile waste can include any product that has completed its life cycle and is no
longer useful to the consumer in both function and esthetics. Industrial textile
waste is, however, the result of the manufacturing processes and is termed as dirty
waste [13, 16].
The textile and apparel industry, which generates a substantial environmental
footprint from cultivation, fabric and garment manufacturing, to the landfill dis-
posal of post-consumer items, faces tremendous environmental and resource chal-
lenges [17]. In order to tackle such challenges to some extent, several fashion
companies offer their customers to take care of their worn-out clothes including
denim jeans. However, studies have concluded that less than 1% of these collected
clothes are being recycled while nearly 80% of them are mainly sold on the second-
hand market in poor countries around the world or used as blankets or isolation

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

material. The remaining 20% of the clothes are either sold on the second-hand
market within the EU or is sent to landfill or incineration [18].
Being the largest fraction of apparel, waste jeans (or waste denim fabric from
tailoring operations) are composed mainly of “cotton” and “cotton/polyester” fab-
ric with different weight ratios [19]. Although this may lead to the understanding
that denim made with 100% cotton, in particular, will readily deteriorate in the
environment, in practice a pair of such jeans can stay alive in the environment for a
very long time, and therefore the negative environmental impact is very high. The
literature reveals that the amount of waste jeans generated annually is estimated as
2.16 million tons and only 35–50% of this amount is collected in Western Europe in
order to reuse or recycle it after sorting [13, 20–21].
As one of the sources of solid waste, the cutting waste during denim jean
production—which has relatively a homogeneous nature—is between 10% and
15%, and most of the waste is recycled by unraveling and reusing the fibers in the
production of insert yarns (weft direction), which is a good example of “recycling
in design (RiD).” Most jeans’ producers recycle denim waste in their own
manufacturing plants or have contracts with textile waste recyclers to reuse the
waste material in the spinning of new yarns. There is also substantial trade of denim
waste all over the world [13, 21–22].
Another source of denim waste is the post-consumer denim jeans. Color, quality
of fabric, and garment accessories like rivets, buttons, zippers, and labels are the
main components of the heterogeneous nature of this very denim waste. The main
problem is the collection of post-consumer jeans. Although in many countries
collection systems are in place, many consumers discard their jeans as solid munic-
ipal waste. Jeans that are collected are mostly sold to textile sorting companies
which manually/automatically sort the rewearable jeans for sale to second-hand
shops and in Third World countries. Nonwearable jeans are, however, shredded and
used for the development of various types of products such as thermal and acoustic
insulators and/or textile-based composites for certain structural and other special-
ized applications [13, 21, 23–28].
Finally, as a different approach to decreasing the denim waste regarding post-
consumer denim jeans, the leasing of jeans was introduced several years ago by
MUD Jeans. In this concept, the producer or distributor of the jeans stays the owner.
The user of the jeans only “buys” the right to the use the jeans for a period of 1 year.
If the jeans need to be repaired, it is at the cost of the lease company [22]. The
same company, together with several of others, has also focused on “design for
recycling (D4R)” for facilitating the recycling of denim jeans, such that they do not
use leather labels but printed ones at the waistband, employ rivets and buttons that
are made from 100% stainless steel and no finishing (electroplating), and have
utilized buttons made out of recycled jeans on their denim shirts and sweaters, etc.
[13, 29–30].

3. An overview of recycling in textiles and apparel

An average person buys 60% more clothing items every year and keeps them for
half as long as they used to keep about 15 years ago. It is assumed that overall
consumption of textiles will have reached to 102 million tons by 2030 and that the
textile industry’s waste will have increased by about 60% between 2015 and 2030.
That means the total level of fashion waste will reach to 148 million tons in 2030. As
is known, the majority of clothing waste ends up in landfills or is incinerated, and
once in landfills, it takes hundreds of years for natural fibers to decompose and may
release methane and CO2 into the atmosphere. Synthetic materials, on the other

5
Textile Industry and Waste

hand, are not designed to decompose and may release toxic substances into
groundwater and the surrounding soil. If the average life of clothing could be
extended by only 3 months, it would reduce waste generation as well as their carbon
and water footprints, by 5–10% [19, 31–34].
The textile industry’s linear model of “make, use, and dispose of” represents an
apparent pressure on scarce natural resources. Circular economy, on the other
hand, aims to move away from the unsustainable linear model by decoupling
economic activity from the consumption of finite resources and designing waste out
of the system. When the recycling component is included, it helps to absorb the
residuals of industrial and consumer use [35–36]. Accordingly, circular economy’s
principles may be given as follows:

• Put an end to waste generation and pollution during the design stage.

• Keep products and materials in use.

• Restore and regenerate natural systems.

Within that concept, a five-step waste management hierarchy was introduced in

order to direct toward a more sustainable behavior (Figure 1) [37].
Waste generation prevention has the highest significance followed by reuse.
Reusing is the concept of using undamaged parts of used products for
manufacturing activities. When textiles turn into waste and are disposed by their
consumers, recycling offers the opportunity to save raw materials and energy as
well as to reduce pollution. Product/material recovery includes the activities like
repairing, refurbishing, and disassembling, performed to regain the product value
at the end of its life cycle. To dispose generated waste is the last step of the
hierarchy [17, 38–41].
Textile recycling routes can be categorized in different ways as follows:

1. Mechanical, chemical, thermal, and biological based on the nature of the

process.

Figure 1.
Waste management hierarchy [38–39].

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

2. Downcycling where the product of the recycled material is of lower quality. As

the length of fibers is shortened and the constituent of molecules is reduced by
wear, laundry, and recycling process, the textile recycling is often in the way
of downcycling.

3. Upcycling where the product of the recycled material is of higher quality.

4. Open-loop recycling covers a concept in which a product’s raw material is

separated to be utilized as a part of a randomly used item. Generally, the
second item is not recycled and discarded toward the end of its life.
Downcycling can be equalized with open-loop recycling system in which the
reclaimed material is used to make a less valuable product than the disposed
one. Therefore, it results in little economic value and low environmental
benefits.

5. Closed-loop recycling refers to recycling techniques where the material

recycled is a similar material which is being delivered. For example, the waste
material reenters a piece of clothing production chain. Closed-loop recycling
generates a greater impact on sustainability, and a product remains in a
circular stream and retains its material quality. There are a number of ways to
define closed-loop recycling approaches in the apparel industry. Three of them
are [41]:

• Recycling pre- or post-consumer textile waste.

• Cradle-to-cradle (C2C) methodology in which waste is reclaimed and

used again in the production of products of the same or higher value.
Biological waste can be composted, while technical waste can be reused
within industry to create the same products again.

• Closed-loop reuse of existing garments: Although reuse of garments is not

recycling in the sense of breaking down a product into its raw materials,
the product may enter a new life cycle within the same production chain.

Textile recycling technologies are also categorized into four classes as primary,
secondary, tertiary and, quaternary approaches [13, 40, 42–43]. Primary recycling
involves recycling of material in its original form for recovery of equal value.
Secondary recycling incorporates processing a post-consumer product into raw
materials usually by mechanical means into a product with different physical and/or
chemical properties (mechanical recycling). Tertiary includes processes like pyrol-
ysis and hydrolysis, in which waste is converted to basic chemical constituents,
monomers, or fuels (chemical recycling). Quaternary (recovery) covers waste-to-
energy conversion processes such as incineration of solid waste or utilization of heat
generated.

3.1 Textile recycling techniques

Recycling is the process of breaking down a product or material to make a

material of a higher or equal value (upcycling) or of a lower value (downcycling), in
which textiles are commonly mechanically or chemically broken down to their fiber
constituents [41]. Biodegradation is another method used to recycle waste and to
break down organic materials into compounds.

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Textile Industry and Waste

3.1.1 Mechanical recycling

The difference between mechanical and chemical recycling is that wet

processing is eliminated or reduced in the mechanical recycling system [44]. Most
of the current recycling systems for post-consumer waste textiles mainly include
reuse and mechanical processes.
The method of mechanical recycling, which is categorized as a secondary
recycling approach, is composed of two main processes: sorting of the waste mate-
rial and the mechanical decomposition of the fabric. The material to be recycled is
sorted according to fiber type, color, quality, etc. Sorting for post-industrial waste
may be performed with a risk of uncertainty as the fiber content and properties of
the fibers may not be always known. The in-house reprocessing of manufacturing-
related waste represents recycling on the primary level [39].
The disintegration of textile material to a fibrous form through mechanical
recycling is referred to as shredding or garneting [38, 40–41]. In mechanical
recycling machines, the fabrics are cut into small pieces of 1 to 8 cm strips with a
rotary blade and separated into single fibers through a process known as “picking,”
“pulling,” or “tearing” by needle-equipped cylinders which have progressively
smaller spiked surfaces. On such machines waste is fed through a conveyor belt of
the front roller to be transferred to the spiked roller. Spiked roller rotates clockwise,
and bottom roller, located under the spiked one, rotates anticlockwise. The distance
between the rollers can be varied according to the type of input material, and the
waste is opened while passing through rollers.
Mechanical recycling has some shortcomings since the process is too aggressive
to retain fiber quality and can result in a 75% loss of value after the first cycle. The
mechanical process breaks may cause a tremendous loss in fiber length and a
significant decrease in the material quality. For the process, longer processing times
are needed, and the production rate is lower. As a result, blending with virgin
material (especially in the case of cotton and wool fibers) for spinning processes is
inevitable [38, 42, 44]. Consistently, waste collected from the manufacturing sup-
ply chain produces higher-quality recycled fibers than those collected from post-
consumer waste. The pre-consumer and post-industrial waste can be respun into
yarns which are further woven or knitted into fabrics and then used in apparel,
upholstery, etc. [13]. Heterogeneity of post-consumer waste worsens constant
quality retention.
Nonetheless, despite the drawbacks of mechanical recycling, the technology has
shown promising for the reprocessing of denim fabric and garments [45].

3.1.2 Chemical recycling

The method of chemical recycling, which is categorized as a tertiary recycling

approach, involves chemical processing of the fiber polymers, e.g., depolymerizing or
dissolving. Chemical recycling depends on the quality of the processed waste to a
limited degree and decomposes fibers down to the polymeric level [39]. Various
chemical recycling processes have been demonstrated and developed. Chemical
recycling of synthetic polymers and feedstock recycling depolymerize waste plastics
into base chemical molecule called monomers with high purity [38]. The presence of
additives and chemicals used in the polymerization process affects the purity and
quality of the monomers obtained after recycling. The thermochemical process used
to decompose polymers is referred to as pyrolysis, sometimes thermolysis. Pyrolysis is
conducted at various temperatures and pressure levels and with the presence of
catalysts or reactive gases. Pyrolysis processes are only economically viable for certain
manufactured fibers including polyesters, polyamides, and polyolefins [13, 40].

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

Mechanical recycling Chemical recycling

Categorized as a secondary recycling approach Categorized as a tertiary recycling approach

Wet processing is eliminated Involves chemical processing
It is not as energy-intensive as chemical The biggest challenge is that chemical recycling is
recycling very energy-intensive
Mechanical recycling process is too aggressive to Chemical recycling allows a more valuable product
retain fiber quality in comparison to the products recycled by
Heterogeneity of post-consumer waste worsens mechanical processes
constant quality retention Chemical recycling depends on the quality of the
Mechanical recycling has been efficiently processed waste to a limited degree
adopted by industry for recycling of single fiber Chemical recycling is expected to be more suitable
materials for large-scale recycling of blended materials

Table 1.
Comparison of mechanical and chemical textile recycling techniques.

Chemical recycling for polyester also includes glycolysis, hydrolysis, and

metanolysis processes.
Chemical recycling is a promising process since it allows the recovery of a more
valuable product in comparison to the products recycled by mechanical processes
[34, 38, 42, 44]. As it uses a selective degradation method, chemical recycling is
expected to be more suitable for large-scale recycling of blended materials, while
mechanical recycling has been efficiently adopted by industry for recycling of single
fiber materials. In products of cotton and polyester, the fibers can be chemically
separated and then reformed into new fibers [13]. On the other hand, although
chemical textile recycling has broader use than do the mechanical method, chemical
and water consumption (70% lower in case of mechanical processing) for wet
processing is high. Barriers to the widespread adoption of chemical recycling also
include high costs, multiple processing steps requiring high operational knowledge,
and energy requirement for heating and scouring processes [42, 44].
A comparison of mechanical and chemical textile recycling techniques are given
in Table 1 [38, 44].

3.1.3 Bioconversion processes

Biodegradation can be featured as a method used by nature to recycle waste and

to break down organic materials into compounds by microorganisms such as bacte-
ria, fungi, insects, worms, and others. Through biodegradation processes, it is
possible for nature to clean up wastes, to provide nutrients for the growth of new
lives, and to produce the energy necessary for various biological processes [46].
Biochemical transformation via fermentation is an attractive way for utilizing
recycling textile waste. Cotton is typically composed of 88–96% cellulose, and it is
possible to hydrolyze waste cotton by enzymatic or chemical methods to obtain
glucose and then ferment it into value-added products. Biogas production from
textile waste via anaerobic digestion is an alternative route to utilize solid waste
from textile industry. Organic compounds in solid waste can be used as a raw
material to produce desired products via bioconversion processes. On the contrary,
thermal and chemical processes can convert both organic and inorganic compounds
to value-added products [47].

3.1.4 Thermal and thermochemical conversion processes

Conventional thermal processing refers to the combustion of solid waste and its
conversion into energy. Since solid waste from the textile industry contains a high

9
Textile Industry and Waste

energy content, it can be used as a raw material to generate heat energy [47]. Solid
waste from the textile industry can be used as a raw material to produce briquette.
The thermal processes that are performed at high temperature with inadequate
oxygen could generate carbon monoxide, which is a greenhouse gas. Therefore, a
thermochemical conversion process, such as pyrolysis, is applied. Pyrolysis is
referred to the decompositional process with high temperature in the absence of
oxygen condition [47]. Products from pyrolysis are various, such as activated car-
bon fiber, char, bio-oil, and syngas. The variation of product is related to pyrolysis
condition.

3.2 Challenges in recycling denim

Despite its growing popularity, there are numerous obstacles to textile recycling
[47–48]. The major ones to the optimization of textile recycling are:

1. Economic viability: Due to the widespread production of lower-grade products

(downcycling) from textile recycling, many recycled textile wastes are
unsuitable for multiple recirculation and use. Limited recirculation and reuse
are not economically viable and discourages investment in textile recycling.

2. Composition of textile products: The base components of many textile

products make them unsuitable for recycling. The presence of plastics and
metals in textile products hinders their recyclability.

3. Nonavailability of recyclable textile materials: A limited quantity of used

textiles and textile waste are collected and sorted for recycling, and the
quantity that is suitable and accessible for recycling is insufficient.

4. Technological limitations: One of the main reasons for the limited quantity of
recyclable materials is the lack of technologies for sorting textile waste in
preparation for recycling. Dyes and other contaminants cannot be separated
from the original fibers by most of the existing methods.

5. Lack of information and limited public participation: Limited public awareness

on the merits of recycling contributes immensely to the low recycling rate,
causing market inefficiency.

6. Poor coordination, weak policies, and standards: Uncoordinated collection of

waste and absence of an integrated and well-coordinated framework and
policies to enhance the overall efficiency of the textile recycling are identified
as barriers to efficient recycling.

There are also some constraints and challenges faced specific to denim
recycling processes [29, 49]. Collection and sorting of worn-out jeans is time-
consuming and laborious. Labels; metal parts like rivets, zippers, and buttons;
and leather patches have to be removed manually from the jean before shredding.
Generally, the metal and leather parts are removed, but it is more difficult to
remove the labels, and therefore jeans are sent along with them. The consequence
is that the labels contaminate the recycled denim material as they are made of
other materials. Any metal parts present on the jean to be recycled may cause
problems to the machinery and process. It is easier to remove buttons and zippers
by using gravitation but since rivets are too small and too light, special care is
needed to remove them.

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

Denim jeans are characterized by thick lapped seams that create problems dur-
ing shredding and carding processes. The presence of elastane is another problem. It
is more convenient to separate it before shredding and cutting, but this can only be
done by chemical recycling. Recycling different colored jeans together results in a
multicolored yarn that can create problems in dyeing. Recycled fibers might not
meet the quality of virgin ones and could not be spun or woven properly.

4. Life cycle assessment of a denim fabric

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology where the environmental perfor-

mance of a product or service is assessed starting from the raw material extraction
point to the end of life of that product/service, i.e., from “cradle to grave.” The
methodology of LCA is defined under the ISO 14040/44 Standard [50].
For a pair of denim jeans, the life cycle (Figure 2) starts with the production
of raw materials such as fibers and chemicals. These materials are then
transported to fabric manufacturer and processed to become a fabric. During
fabric production, energy and water are consumed in addition to raw materials
while emission to air and to water and production waste are generated. The
following process for the fabric is garment manufacturing in which the fabric is
cut, sewn, washed, and accessorized (rivets, buttons, etc.) according to the
design. Finally, the finished garment is sent to a warehouse or directly stores to be
sold. After it is bought, the garment is washed and dried (or dry-cleaned
depending on its nature) many times throughout its use phase. When it com-
pletes its life span, the garment has various “end of life” scenarios such as
recycling, reused, refurbished, and disposed in landfill or incinerated, etc., which
were discussed in the previous sections.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) helps us analyze the environmental performance
of denim production in a transparent and systematic way and identify the hot
spots.

Figure 2.
Lifecycle of a jean.

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Textile Industry and Waste

4.1 Methodology used for assessing the lifecycle impacts

The methodology behind life cycle assessment (LCA) is to accumulate all the
impacts originated from the inputs and outputs of a system starting from the
“cradle to grave” and to give a total impact number for the system under discussion.
Accordingly, in an attempt to exemplify the importance of recycling of denim from
the perspective of its environmental impact, an experimental work regarding the
life cycle assessment of a denim fabric with and without recycled fiber content was
conducted. For the work, the inventory was based on the 2019 denim production
figures of a Turkish denim manufacturer in their manufacturing plant in Turkey. As
assessment tool, SimaPro software developed by the Pré Sustainability, was used.
SimaPro is the leading life cycle assessment (LCA) software that has been used for
more than 25 years by the industry and academics in more than 80 countries [51].
SimaPro uses two types of data: primary and secondary. The primary data involves
the basics of a denim production such as the amount of cotton used to manufacture
1 m of denim, i.e., 0.5 kg cotton. This data is exclusive to the fabric production
practices of the factory. The secondary data, however, comes from the database,
and it includes the impacts originated from producing that much raw material
(in our case cotton fiber) and all other inputs such as chemicals at every stage. For
secondary data, Ecoinvent database that is embedded into the software and is the
most common life cycle inventory (LCI) database worldwide is used. [52]
To be able to perform life cycle assessment of a specific good or service, one
needs to have inventory data for the complete supply chain. Due to the amount of
data needed in order to be able to perform a life cycle assessment (LCA) study for a
full supply chain, it is practically impossible to collect and organize the data of the
complete background system. In that respect, the Ecoinvent database provides this
very background system fulfilling the data required for the assessment. The
Ecoinvent v3 database contains life cycle inventory (LCI) data taken from various
sectors such as energy supply, agriculture, transport, building materials, production
of chemicals, and metal production and consists of around 17,000 datasets, each of
which describes a life cycle inventory (LCI) on a process level [52–53].
SimaPro software provides six libraries that each contain all the processes that
are found in the Ecoinvent database but uses different system models and contains
either unit or system processes. The three Ecoinvent system models are “allocation
at point of substitution,” “cutoff by classification,” and “consequential.” The system
model “allocation at the point of substitution” follows the attributional approach in
which burdens are attributed proportionally to specific processes. “Allocation, cut-
off by classification” system model is based on the recycled content or cutoff
approach in which the primary production of materials is always allocated to the
primary user of a material. In this approach, if a material is recycled, the primary
producer does not receive any credit for the provision of any recyclable materials
available and burden-free to recycling processes; therefore recycled materials bear
only the impacts of the recycling processes. The system model “substitution, con-
sequential, long-term” uses different basic assumptions to assess the consequences
of a change in an existing system and can be used for perspective studies and
prediction of future changes [54]. In this study, for recycled materials “cutoff by
classification” system model and for all other data “allocation at point of substitu-
tion” system model are used.
For life cycle assessment (LCA) of a product, the production of an item (e.g.,
denim fabric) is simulated, using both consumption and production data (primary)
of a factory and the corresponding secondary data from the Ecoinvent database.
The next step is to choose the environmental impacts to be calculated. The whole
process is given in Figure 3.

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

Figure 3.
LCA calculation process.

4.2 Selected impact categories

One of the most important parts of life cycle assessment (LCA) is the outputs, in
other words the environmental impacts of the product. With SimaPro software, it is
possible to calculate over 100 environmental impact categories. For that reason, the
academic- and industry-specific life cycle assessment (LCA) studies’ guidelines and
standards were surveyed to determine the environmental impacts for our study
(Table 2).
With this taxonomy (Table 2), the commonly used environmental impact cate-
gories are listed for textiles. Consequently, based on the taxonomy given in Table 1
and the raw material need for a denim fabric, five impact categories are selected.
These impact categories, their definitions, and calculation methodologies within the
SimaPro software are presented in Table 3.

4.3 Environmental impact as a rationale for denim fabric recycling

4.3.1 System perspective

As was mentioned above, the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is

selected to calculate the environmental impacts of denim fabrics having different
recycled contents in the same article so that the whole system can be taken into
consideration. This means that we have to calculate the effect of every step in the
life cycle to see the whole impact of our choices, including cultivation/production of
the fiber, fabric production, garment manufacturing, distribution, consumer laun-
dering, reuse, and final disposal [76–77]. One may think that using recycled cotton
reduces the impact drastically, but parameters such as increased waste during
production and increased energy usage should also be taken into account in a
system perspective.
If only one process or only fabric production as a system were calculated, this
would have represented a single framed approach which is generally not preferable
as calculations for production of single frames may lead to unwanted and
unforeseen effects elsewhere in the whole system.

4.3.2 Five environmental impact categories

The specifications of the denim article selected for the work is given in Table 4.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted for 1 m of the article in accordance with
the process steps including fiber cultivation, transportation, and all the production
steps covered in the Turkish denim manufacturing company. The five environ-
mental impacts are presented in Figure 4. For the comparative study, the results are

13
14

Textile Industry and Waste

References Global Acidification Eutrophication Ozone Abiotic Photochemical Freshwater Human Water Terrestrial Greenhouse Nonrenewable Carcinogens Land Aquatic Mineral Ecotoxicity Freshwater Freshwater Ionizing Water
warming layer depletion oxidant use toxicity consumption ecotoxicity gases energy use occupation eutrophication extraction eutrophication aquatic radiation depletion
potential depletion formation (GHG) ecotoxicity
(GWP)
climate
change

[55] 1 1 1 1 1 1

[56] 1 1 1 1 1 1

[57] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

[58] 1 1

[59] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

[60] 1 1 1 1 1 1

[61] 1 1 1 1

[62] 1 1 1 1 1

[63] 1 1 1

[64] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

[65] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

[66] 1

[9] 1 1 1 1 1 1

[67] 1 1 1 1

Total 10 8 8 5 5 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Table 2.
A taxonomy of environmental impact categories for textiles.
Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

Indicator Unit Description Example impact Methodology

Global warning kg CO2 eq Emission of greenhouse gases Climate change IPCC 2013
potential (kilogram (GHGs) GWP 100a
carbon dioxide [68–69]
equivalent)

Freshwater use lt Excessive freshwater taken Water scarcity Life cycle

(liters) from the environment inventory

Land use m2 a The amount of agricultural Deforestation ReCiPe 2016

(meter square area uccupied Midpoint (H)
per annum) [70–71]

Eutrophication kg PO43 eq Emission of substances to Nutrient loading to CML-IA

potential (EP) (kilogram water contributing to oxygen water stream- baseline
phosphate depletion water pollution [72–75]
equivalent)

Abiotic kg Sb eq Measure of mineral, metal, Mineral scarcity CML-IA

resource (kilogram and fossil fuel resources used baseline [72]
depletion antimony to produce a product
equivalent)

Table 3.
Selected environmental impact categories.

Article Code Width (cm) Weight (oz/yd2) Composition

Article A 150 14.89 100% cotton

Table 4.
Article specifications.

given in terms of percentages (%) so that unit differences of the impact categories
were eliminated.
In denim production, the hottest spot for the selected four categories is the fiber
growth stage. In the fifth impact category, abiotic resource depletion, fiber stage has
the second highest impact. This clearly shows the importance of raw material
selection for denim fabric production.

4.3.3 Impact of recycled material content

This section aims to determine the impact of recycled cotton content in the
denim fabric under discussion (Table 4). Accordingly, different recycled cotton
contents are used in the life cycle assessment calculations of Article A. These are as
follows:

• Article A-1: 100% cotton

• Article A-2: 80% cotton +20% recycled cotton

• Article A-3: 70% cotton +30% recycled cotton

• Article A-4: 60% cotton +40% recycled cotton

• Article A-5: 50% cotton +50% recycled cotton

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Textile Industry and Waste

Figure 4.
Five environmental impacts of selected fabric according to process steps.

Figure 5.
Results of LCA calculations of virgin and post-consumer recycled cotton blends.

In each version, the recycled cotton content was increased by 10%. The recycled
cotton used in the calculations is post-consumer recycled cotton, and its industrial
data such as production and transportation data is obtained from a local supplier.
The results of the life cycle assessment (LCA) calculations are presented in
Figure 5. As may be seen from these results, global warming potential decreases by

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

5%, eutrophication drops by 8%, and abiotic resource depletion drops by 3% with
each addition of 10% recycled content in the blend.
Global warming potential, in other words climate change impact, is affected by
two main stages: fiber cultivation and spinning. The energy usage in spinning
increases when the recycled cotton content is increased, which implies a negative
impact of the use of such fiber on global warming potential. However, since the
percentage of the virgin cotton usage is decreased, this decline delivers a high
positive impact for global warming potential, lessening the effect of energy usage.
In eutrophication calculation, the main effect derives from usage of fertilizers,
pesticides, and insecticides at farm level. During irrigation of cotton, the probability
of water pollution caused by these chemicals increases. Once the usage of virgin
cotton decreases in the blend, the value of eutrophication decreases. Overall, the
decrease results as 8% with a use of 10% recycled cotton.
Water use and land use impacts decrease by 10% with an addition of 10%
recycled cotton. Since cotton uses land, and a high amount of water in the field
during cultivation, avoiding the use of virgin cotton creates a high decrease in
impact categories. If one can spin and weave a blend of 50% virgin and 50%
recycled cotton, the overall impact on these two categories decreases 50%, which is
a considerable figure when the amount of fabric produced reaches approximately 3
billion meters annually.

4.3.4 Impact of organic cotton and recycled cotton

This section aims to determine the impact of blending recycled cotton with
organic cotton. Organic cotton data used in the calculations is generated from the
literature [78–79]. The percentages used in the life cycle assessment (LCA) calcula-
tions are as follows:

• Article A-1: 100% cotton

• Article A-6: 100% organic cotton

• Article A-7: 80% organic cotton +20% recycled cotton

Once organic cotton is used, at least 25% decrease appears in three categories:
namely, global warming potential, eutrophication, and abiotic resource depletion.
The decrease in water use (11%) is comparably low. On the other hand, real
decrease happens in the land use, nearly 40%. This is due to the data for Aegean
Region organic cotton. The yield in Turkish organic cotton is comparably high. The
land use for 1 kg of lint organic cotton is 4.65m2 for Turkish organic cotton. The
same figure appears to be 19.7 for global production and 20.9 for the US organic
cotton (Figure 6).
The virgin cotton used in study for calculations is a blend of the US, Turkish,
Greek, and Brazilian cotton.
The results of the life cycle assessment (LCA) calculations are presented in
Figure 7. The data shows that diverting from 100% regular cotton to 100% organic
cotton reduces global warming potential by 27%, eutrophication by 26%, abiotic
depletion by 24%, and land use by 39%. In addition, as in Article A-7, blending
organic cotton with 20% recycle cotton generates an additional 10% decrease in
land use. With the aid of this blend, the comparably lowest impact in land use is
achieved in this study. The same is true for global warming potential and abiotic
depletion. Article A-7 has the lowest values compared to the rest of the articles in
Figures 5 and 7.

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Textile Industry and Waste

Figure 6.
Land needed for 1 kg lint organic cotton, m2 [80].

Figure 7.
Results of LCA calculations of organic and post-consumer recycled cotton blends.

On the other hand, eutrophication and water use remain higher than those of the
articles in Figure 5. Organic cotton still uses a decent amount of water during
cultivation. Therefore, Article A-7 could not result with the lowest impact on water
use and eutrophication.

4.4 Discussion

Fiber selection stage—in this study fiber cultivation stage—has the main role in
environmental impact of a denim fabric. Selected five impact categories are divided

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Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

into the article’s process steps starting from cradle, meaning cotton cultivation, to
gate, the end of fabric production. When it is analyzed (Section 4.3.2), one can see
that fiber has more than 50% of the total impact in four out of the five categories.
Only in abiotic depletion, warp preparation and dyeing have a greater effect than
that of the fiber itself. Since recycled cotton usage means eliminating the fiber
growing stage or in other words not using virgin raw material that requires natural
resource, the environmental impact decreases as the recycle content increases in the
fabric. And this is mainly true for global warming potential, eutrophication, water
use, and land use. Especially for water and land use, fiber growth stage has more
than 90% impact on the overall score. Fifty percent recycled cotton use decreases
both impacts by 50%. Therefore, it is better to use recycled content to decrease the
environmental impact of water and land use mainly.
Organic cotton with recycled cotton combination has the lowest impact in land
use. Using 100% organic cotton also helps reduce global warming potential and
eutrophication more than using 50% recycled cotton. However, when it comes to
water use and land use, recycled cotton always scores the best since it is not a grown
raw material. Here, one can question the production of recycling. The data related
to production and transportations are taken into account in the LCA calculations.
In conclusion, denim recycling is very crucial to reduce the water and land use
impact of jeans. Combining recycled cotton with organic cotton also leads to reduc-
tions in other impact categories such as eutrophication, global warming potential,
and abiotic depletion as well. As a future study, the impact of different fibers used
in denim fabric production may also be analyzed with a combination of recycled
cotton.

4.5 Challenges

Recycled cotton source appears to be the first challenge when whole textile
system is considered. There are regulations in countries either limiting or declining
the import of second-hand garments. This creates a limitation in source since the
collection of second-hand garments is not organized in some countries.
The second challenge is the composition of jeans. Historically, the main compo-
sition was 100% cotton. Right now, more than half of the jeans include elastane
fiber as well. Besides elastane, new compositions include man-made fibers and
regenerated cellulosic fibers. The more complex the composition, the harder it gets
to recycle jeans mechanically.
The most important challenge here is always the consumer mindset. Across the
industry, only 13% of the total material input is in some way recycled after clothing
use. Most of this recycling consists of cascading to other industries and is used in
lower-value applications, for example, insulation materials, wiping cloths [81],
Once discarded, over half the garments are not recycled but end up in mixed
household waste and are subsequently sent to incinerators or landfill. According to a
McKinsey analysis, as was mentioned before, an average consumer buys 60% more
clothes per year than 15 years ago but keeps the clothes only half the time, and this
really is shocking once the numbers become visible [82]. Consumer awareness
should be increased via marketing channels and mainly in schools.

5. Future of denim recycling

Since mechanical recycling technique is a challenge in the process, recently, new

techniques have emerged to use denim jeans and other cellulosic materials as a
source/raw material. Companies like Re:newcell, Infinited Fibers, and Nanollose are

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Textile Industry and Waste

taking second-hand garments, applying fiber separation and turning cellulosic part
into liquid [83–85]. Some of them include fermentation, and as a last step, they turn
the liquid into the material. The process resembles regenerated cellulosic fiber
process. The use of fermentation appears to be a promising step into bio design for
textiles, and this also eliminates all the negative sides of mechanical recycling.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Author details

Sedef Uncu Akı1, Cevza Candan2*, Banu Nergis2 and Neslihan Sebla Önder1

1 Orta Anadolu TAŞ, İstanbul, Turkey

2 Istanbul Technical University, İstanbul, Turkey

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.

20
Understanding Denim Recycling: A Quantitative Study with Lifecycle Assessment Methodology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92793

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