Soft gifts?

Many, if not most kids’ wish lists, are headlined by hardware: electronics, sports equipment, toys — they all come in solid, boxy packages with promising rumbling sounds as they are shaken. Soft gifts are confined to a different destiny.

Soft packages are usually stuffed with socks, underwear or other sensible and useful items. This category of Christmas gifts seldom get the same immediate enthusiasm as larger and bulkier presents. Often, soft gifts will require polite young receivers to put on brave faces and utter a thin “thank you”, before returning to play with more immediately engaging presents.

Despite this dynamic, soft gifts made of wool, cotton, polyester, and other textile materials, are exchanged by the millions this upcoming Christmas weekend. Many of them are received with happiness and enthusiasm, and most are — hopefully — used again and again, for years to come. Some will even be handed down to the next generation.

But there is also an alarming number of textile items that are returned or placed in wardrobes until their styles ultimately fall out of fashion. At some point, regardless, the recipient will want to dispose of the item. However, there is no straightforward way to do this in a “good” way.

Throwing used clothes in the trash bin will ultimately lead to it being incinerated. Or as the euphemism goes: “the energy stored in item will be released”. Besides not being a very effective source of heat energy, this process will also release CO2 and lead to the fibers in the textiles to be lost forever.

An alternative to throwing the item in the bin, is to deliver it to a used clothing collection station. If the item is in such a condition that it can be reused, you can hope for it to be sorted and identified by someone further down the value chain, and just maybe — it might end up being loved by someone else. But let’s face it — a lot of what’s collected is ripped, dirty or unusable. Today, only 30% of used textile items are collected, and from these, hardly one in ten are sorted so it can be resold, reused or recycled.

The soft gifts under the Christmas tree deserve the same enthusiasm as other gifts. Well, maybe except the “funny” polyester Christmas socks you know you will never wear. That’s a waste of resources we should just stop. But the best soft gifts will grow on you and become wardrobe favorites. At the same time, we need to have a serious think about how we treat our textiles after use. There are technologies today that will be able to provide a new life for the fibers in your old sweater, sports tights or socks.

Closing this gap is a question of attitudes and behaviors, but it is also a question of technology and infrastructure. These are the issues we at Textiles are working on — and will be thinking about as we celebrate this weekend.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.