Before Ikea and H&M can use recycled fabrics, they have to figure out what’s in them. (Answer: lots of poison)
Companies with strict standards about chemicals in their products are wary about using recycled material they can’t control. Ikea and H&M just ran a large study on recyclable fabrics to figure out the kind of chemicals they have—and how they can get rid of them before reuse.
The fabric in a discarded pair of jeans or shirt could potentially be laden with formaldehyde, dyes linked to cancer, phthalates, or heavy metals. That’s not great for the person who wore the clothing or the people who made it—but it’s also a challenge for companies that plan to recycle textiles into new products and don’t want those products to include a random and unknown assortment of chemicals.