RFiD Threads® Technology for Circular Economy and Future Sustainability

Abstract

Problem

The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry globally [UNEP2021] - 85% of all textiles go to landfill each year [WEF2021]. There is growing demand for a shift to circular business models, with new concepts emerging such as “extended producer responsibility” [DEFRA2022], and policy announcements such as the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, mandating Digital Product Passports (DPP) [EC2023].
The Ellen McArthur Foundation [EMF2021] has stated that “Sustainability concerns among customers are also projected to heighten”. This fact, coupled with the preparation of potential new regulatory instruments such as ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ and other critical regulatory developments, is pushing the industry to consider different and more sustainable ways of producing textile products. A new technology-infrastructure to facilitate this transition is required, to support companies
and consumers access critical data on individual garments.

150 billion items of clothing are produced annually worldwide [EMF2022], of which around 12.5 billion were tagged in 2022, using radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology [Checkpoint2022]. The use of RFID tags is increasing rapidly, with the market projected to reach $35.6 Billion by 2030 [MarketsAndMarkets2022].

However, there are mainly two sustainability related problems holding back the full potential of RFID in the fashion industry:

1. Weaknesses in current RFID-tag technologies: low robustness, non-washability, and attachment to temporary labels not integrated with the garment itself. 12.5 Billion RFID-tags were used last year in the fashion industry, mainly for inventory management [Checkpoint2022]. Those billions of paper/metal/label tags are usually removed immediately after sale and end up in landfill (which is very bad for the environment), because they are not washable or comfortable to wear with the
   garment. For garments to be traceable throughout their lifecycle (enabling efficiencies and circular models), there is a need for integrating permanent 'Digital Passports' (e.g. RFID) in each textile-based product, and for easy access to data contained in these Digital Passports.

2. Lack of data access, exchange and integration between supply chain actors: Currently, stakeholders use their own independent data management system/s. Therefore, the biggest challenges for efficient recycling/reuse of clothing is lack of access to data on fibre/material content. This makes it very difficult to implement automated systems for breaking up and separating used clothing items into their different fibre components.