CETIA is a French company that has invented a machine to recycle clothes. It hopes to reduce waste caused by the fashion industry.
The machine uses artificial intelligence to scan garments and identify hard elements like zips and buttons that can be cut off using a laser.
Without this technology, most clothes are tough to recycle because they are made of materials that must be separated carefully before they are turned into new garments. Most textiles in Europe end up as housing insulation, padding or asphalt for paving roads. CETIA said its AI-laser machine could separate the materials more quickly than doing it by hand – it can sort one piece of clothing in one second.
“As long as we do not have systems to prepare materials for recycling, we will not have a recycling sector in France,” said Veronique Allaire-Spitzer, who helps with waste management.
Backed by large retailers like Decathlon and Zalando, which are seeking industrial-scale solutions to textile recycling, the company’s work involves prototyping concepts and demonstrating their technical feasibility on an industrial scale. Cetia has received a €900,000 cash injection from eco-organisation Refashion, along with nearly €1m from France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. (Source: just-style.com)
“Brands are telling us that they want their products’ textiles to be recycled in their own industry, rather than being used in insulation or flooring,” Legagneur told Le Figaro. At present, Europe recycles just 1% of used clothes into new clothes, and, in France alone, 700,000 tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year.
News source:
The tech to recycle clothes is only just being invented (The Busienss Standard)
Signal: AI for textile recycling? French firm Cetia has it covered (Just-style.com)
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