What is recycled cotton?

What is recycled cotton?

Each French person throws away an average of 12kg of clothes a year. According to ADEME, 4 million tonnes of clothing are thrown away every year in Europe. At the same time, cotton is the most widely used textile in the world. This waste is therefore a huge source of recycled cotton.

Recycled cotton has a smaller environmental footprint mainly because it gives all this waste a new use. Using what has already been produced locally is surely one of the best ways to reduce your environmental footprint.

Recycled cotton also helps to avoid wasting natural resources. Producing cotton uses a lot of water, insecticides... We tell you all about cotton here.

Eco-responsible brands therefore replace conventional virgin cotton with several materials: recycled cotton, but also organic cotton (virgin or recycled), linen, hemp, Tencel...

How does cotton become recycled cotton?

Most of the time, cotton is collected from your donations by charities and sorting companies (Le relais, Emmaüs, etc.). Clothes made of 100% cotton are set aside to be recycled. After that, the process is fairly simple. The fibre is broken down to make a new one. Shredding then spinning (turning it into yarn) are the next steps. The result is a new recycled cotton fibre, which can then be woven and used to make new clothes.

Anything to watch out for?

Recycled cotton can contain shorter fibres and therefore be less durable. That is often why it is blended with other textile fibres.

*Sources: France Inter