Quality assessment of fabrics obtained from waste

Abstract

The need for ready-made clothing and home textiles produced from natural and synthetic fibres is increasing day by day in order to meet the needs of the increasing world population. Recently, the concepts of sustainability and recycling have gained importance in the textile industry. The rapid change in today's trends has developed disposable habits. Due to the rapidly changing fashion trends, the product variety has increased and mass production has been preferred. Therefore, the priority for customers to choose the products was not the material used, but whether they fit the current fashion trend. Thus, the use and production of natural fibres should be increased to reduce environmental pollution and meet production demand. Thanks to recycling, it is possible to reuse the waste textile materials that we leave to nature. Due to the increase in agricultural production costs, it has become difficult to obtain the raw materials used for textiles. When a life cycle system is created for raw materials that evaluate them until it is produced in nature and then return to nature, production with textile waste recycling can be advantageous. Using natural waste fibres instead of natural virgin fibres to produce home textile products both reduces costs and makes production easier. In this study, recycled (waste) cotton was obtained by shredding white, 100% cotton woven duvet covers and sheets purchased from a private hospital. A 50%-50% waste-natural blend was created from the cotton obtained. 54 wire reference fabrics were woven using open-end yarns numbered Ne24 and Ne12 produced from this blend. The physical characteristics of the fabric were investigated. The results obtained were analysed statistically and the effect of the blend created on the fabric quality was comprehensively examined.