Circular textiles: Transforming post-consumer garment waste into mat for bag production

The growing population, better living conditions, fast fashion, and shorter life of garments are causing more textile waste. Post-consumer garment waste (PCGW) is now a major threat to the environment and human health, making recycling essential for circular economy and sustainability. In this study, PCGW was mechanically recycled into fibers, which were mixed with polyester fibers to make carding webs using a blow room-integrated carding machine, and then it was heat-pressed. One, two, and four layers of carding webs were used to make the four different types of mats. Morphological analysis, tensile properties, moisture management properties, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were used to characterize the developed mats to confirm its potential for the desired application. Among all the developed mats, four-layer-based mat exhibited the highest breaking force and elongation which is (29.12 ± 0.79) N, at extension 23.96%. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed the good arrangement of fibers in the mat with average fiber diameter (13.79 ± 0.73) µm. A moisture management test (MMT) confirms it can resist water to some extent with bottom surface wetting time slower than top (10.296 s). Also, one-way transport capacity was found to be 798.676. For the feasibility study, the produced mat was also used to make a bag. This paper contributes to the advancement of circular textiles by offering a new approach that converts PCGW into usable products like bags, demonstrating the commercial and environmental viability of textile recycling.