Have you ever wondered about the journey of your donated clothes after they leave your closet? The reality of your good intentions to help sustainability might surprise you: not all garments are recycled into new products. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that 85% of used clothes and textiles were sent to landfills and incinerators in 2018—reflecting an unsustainable outcome while the nation’s appetite for fast fashion keeps growing.
NIST Reveals Database to Drive Recycling Efforts
To help increase recycling and reduce the waste of fabrics, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently developed a Near-Infrared Spectra of Origin-defined and Real-world Textiles or “NIR-SORT” database, which enables a more rapid and efficient sorting of textiles and clothing at recycling centers.
The database contains 64 different fabric types, along with the molecular or NIR “fingerprints” they produce. NIR-SORT includes pure fiber types, such as cotton and polyester; blended fiber types, such as spandex blends; and real-world fabrics taken from thrift stores. NIST reports that manufacturers of NIR scanner systems can use this database to train and test their machine learning and AI-driven sorting algorithms to improve the performance of their products.
“This reference data will help improve sorting algorithms and unlock the potential for high-throughput sorting, which requires less manual labor,” said Amanda Forster, a NIST materials research engineer. “That should reduce costs and increase efficiency, making textile recycling more economically viable.”
NIST reports that it has the equipment and expertise to fill the database with very high-quality spectra, with the goal to have fewer errors when identifying fabrics, leading to more textiles getting recycled.
The effort is an outcome of NIST’s Circular Economy Program, which leverages NIST expertise in advanced measurements, data, standards, and tools to support innovation and industrial competitiveness in the transition to a circular economy nationwide.
Standards Support the Circular Economy
To boost progress in sustainability in the standards realm, in 2023, ANSI member ASTM International’s E60 Committee on Sustainability sought to garner stakeholder input on drivers and barriers facing circular manufacturing and the need for standards to foster a circular economy for manufacturing materials. The takeaways, developed in collaboration with NIST, were published in “Fostering a Circular Economy of Manufacturing Materials Workshop Report,” which references a number of standards that support sustainable outcomes. These include ASTM E3096, Guide for Definition, Selection, and Organization of Key Performance Indicators for Environmental Aspects of Manufacturing Processes, and ASTM E2979, Standard Classification for Discarded Materials from Manufacturing Facilities and Associated Support Facilities, both developed by ASTM International Subcommittee E60.13 on Sustainable Manufacturing.
A number of international standards support the circular economy; such standards help companies assure that their products align with principles like durability, reusability, upgradability, or repairability. These standards include ISO 59020, Circular economy — Measuring and assessing circularity performance, and ISO 59004:2024, Circular economy — Vocabulary, principles and guidance for implementation, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 323, Circular economy. ANSI is the U.S. member body to ISO, and ASTM is the ANSI-Accredited U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Administrator to TC 323
Another standard, published by ANSI member CSA Group and developed with the support of the Ontario Waste Management Association, CSA SPE-890-2015 SPE-890-15, A Guideline for accountable management of end-of-life materials, provides guidance and best practices for management of end-of-life (EOL) materials.
Read more information about the NIST database and read about standards related to the circular economy.