reportage
From now on, old clothes in Germany should be disposed of separately in order to increase the low recycling rate. A company in Mexico shows how textiles can be reused sensibly.
Christmas market in a trendy district of Mexico City: Many sustainable products are sold here. Mónica Guevara mainly offers beach towels at her stand. All products are made from recycled cotton. A customer is impressed by the fabrics: the colors are clear, the fabrics feel pleasantly soft. Mónica Guevara is co-founder of Nucycles. The company from Tlaxcala, east of Mexico City, specializes in processing leftover textiles and turning them into new fashion.
On the one hand, the company works with up-and-coming Mexican designers, “that's our fashion line.” The beach towel is part of the “Mosaícos” range, “because we realize that not everyone can afford designer clothes, but the environmental problem is massive.” That's why the company has specialized in functional accessories: The scarf can also be used as a scarf or cape, and small scraps of fabric are made into hair ties.
“We are always behind fashion”
The materials are recycled in a factory in Tlaxcala. In a warehouse the size of a football field, large bales and bags of fabric scraps are piled up, finely sorted by color. This makes the end product more valuable, explains the company founder, because Nucycles does not dye its fabrics, as the dyeing process is particularly toxic for the environment due to the enormous water pollution.
Instead, the company only works with the colors that are available. “This year apricot was the fashion color, all clothing production was made with this color. That is, according to fashion, apricot-colored materials arrive here at the factory. We are always behind fashion.”
The fabrics made from recycled textiles arrive at Nucycles in bales or bags. They retain their original color.
Different colors, different Prices
The fabric waste comes from companies in the area; the textile industry is important around Tlaxcala. Various small suppliers bring them to the recycling factory, explains its manager Nicole Wirth. The price depends on the color delivered: “For leftover jeans, for example, we pay the equivalent of a good cent for ten kilos, for certain colors it is more than twice as much.” What you can't see in the warehouse are remnants of old clothes. “Because they have already been washed and used, the quality drops. That's why new threads cannot be made from them.”
In a pilot project, Nucycles recycled worn uniforms from an industrial company. But this is much more complicated and has to happen in a controlled manner, as Mónica Guevara explains: “The fabrics must be cut, all buttons, zippers and all accessories must be removed.” From an economic point of view, it would be more expensive to recycle in this way. The uniforms eventually became blankets that were donated to those in need.
Recycling instead of incinerating waste: materials are waiting to be recycled.
Hand-tested quality that impresses
The recycling process in the factory is entirely mechanical: the scraps of fabric of the same color are cut smaller in a multi-stage process and torn with coarse needles until no larger piece remains. The end product is reminiscent of original cotton. The material can then be used to make new cotton threads. Wirth's company recycles 35 tons of fabric scraps every day, and not just for Nucycles. In the past, the leftover fabric was simply burned.
To become a new beach towel, the threads from the fabric scraps still need to be woven, hemmed, fringed and tagged. The finishing work is done by hand in small craft businesses in the area, such as Luis Enrique Sánchez – because you can't do that with a machine, explains Sánchez. It takes him ten to 15 minutes just to twist and knot the fringes for a shawl.
For company owner Guevara, an important quality control also takes place there: “I think out of more than 10,000 towels he slipped through one that wasn't good – because he looks at it very carefully.” The customer in Mexico City was impressed by the quality and colors of the cloths. She buys several at once.