After a closet cleanout, what options are there for recyling our old threads? Apart from bringing used clothes to a donation center, there is no process for recycling textiles like there is for bottles and cans. And, the average American throws out around 81 pounds of clothing each year. That amounts to more than 11 million tons of textiles that end up in the landfill or incinerator. But MIT engineers hope to cut down on the growing mountain of textile waste, with a new, recyclable yarn. The team has designed a yarn made from a form of plastic that is commonly used in milk bottles and grocery bags. The new yarn, which has a feel similar to traditional sewing thread, can be woven into stretchy, lightweight clothing.

The researchers say that at the end of its use, a yarn-spun garment could be melted down and redrawn into new yarn, and then woven into new clothing or eve… Polyethylene is the most common type of plastic in the world, used to make everything from grocery bags, water bottles, trash bins, and toys to industrial pipes and plastic sheeting. Polyethylene is a thermoplastic, meaning that it can be melted down and remade, and thus recycled. And yet, polyethylene had never really been considered as a textile. In their previous work, Boriskina and her colleagues showed they could spin yarn out of polyethylene, which they then wove into various garments. In those experiments, they focused on the yarn’s moisture wicking, stain-resisting, and cooling properties. In their new study, the group aimed to tailor polyethylene yarn to mimic the strength and flexibility of spandex; they…