Pade Technology Co., Ltd. (Pade) develops optical sorting equipment for textiles to assist the recycling and textile industries in classification, recycling and reuse, providing a stable source of recycled materials.
The textile industry is the second most polluting industry in the world, consuming more than 53 million tons of polyester fiber every year, of which less than 1% is recycled into recycled materials for the textile industry. The bottleneck lies in the lack of efficient sorting technology, which hinders the textile industry from access to a stable source of recycled materials.
Innovative technology solves sorting problems
Pade has been continuously developing key optical sorting technology, using near-infrared spectroscopy and algorithm technology to sort waste textiles. Used clothing recyclers of different scales can use large-scale fixed-point or mobile sorting equipment to qualitatively and quantitatively identify the material and purity of waste textiles, including: polyester, cotton, nylon, acrylic, acetate, wool, polyester & cotton blends, etc., with an accuracy of up to 90%. The sorted used clothes are provided to chemical fiber factories and converted into high-value recycled raw materials. At the same time, a set of cloud resumes from used clothes recyclers to chemical fiber factories are established to provide customers with a basis for carbon footprint calculations.
Newly added consumer recycling channels
Pade will be cooperating with department stores from 2024 in the setup of smart recycling bins for used clothes, allowing consumers to recycle clothes themselves, verify the materials, and receive corresponding reward points after completion. This aims to increase consumers’ willingness to participate.
Benefits
- Using this system, it is estimated that about 40% of discardedused clothes in Taiwan can be recycled every year.
- Saving 64% of energy consumption, reducing water use by 95%, and reducing carbon emissions by 73% by replacing virgin materials with recycled materials [1].
[1] According to estimates by the Taiwan Textile Research Institute.