Resortecs

Creator: Resortecs|Art form: Design, Fashion|Knowledge valorisation : Outreach|Place: Brussels,Belgium|Location : Hybrid|Target group: Academics, Cultural and creative professionals and institutions, Private companies / industries|Domains: Climate Action and Environment|Duration : Long-term Project

Design-for-disassembly solutions that enables high-quality textile recycling on an industrial scale

Challenge: Through targeted innovations in the way clothes are assembled and disassembled, Resortecs empowers brands, sorters and recyclers to rise to today’s environmental challenges at the pace and scale Earth needs.

Resortecs combines thermal engineering, eco-design, and chemical engineering to offer state-of-the-art solutions that empower the entire textile value chain to close the loop. It uses Smart Stitch™ and Smart Disassembly™: Resortecs’ solution for multi-material disassembly in a fast, easy, and cost-efficient manner. “Smart Stitch™ is a range of 16 heat-dissolvable threads – enabling automatic thermal disassembly and design for recycling.
Suitable for a variety of applications, from apparel to fire-resistant workwear, the Smart Stitch™ threads have been exhaustively tested on various production line configurations and are compatible with every stitching machine widely available on the market. Smart Disassembly™ is the world’s first thermal disassembly system – combining the quality of manual methods with the speed of mechanical processes.

A fully automatic process empowering sorters and recyclers to disassemble textile products while removing zippers, elastic bands, and any other trims that hinders recycling 5x faster than manual disassembly. The low-oxygen chamber ensures no risks of fabric oxidation and recyclability rates as high as 90%”

Resources needed

Fashion, eco-design

Purpose of artistic intervention

Textile recycling, an art form coming from Fashion industry, and circularity are becoming crucial points to be addressed for the survival of the textile industry. The surge in urgency in recent years is facilitated by the increasingly tightening regulations on handling textiles at end-of-life and the mandatory use of recycled content, as well as changing demands from critical stakeholders such as investors, media, and end-users.

Positive impacts

Fashion generates over 1.2 billion tons of CO₂ eq. per year. Every second, one truck full of textiles is wasted across the globe. Resortecs helps brands transition from linear to circular production. Textile products stitched with Smart Stitch™ and recycled after Smart Disassembly™ can have half the carbon impact other clothing generates. Don’t take our word for it, check our externally reviewed Life Cycle Assessment figures.

Replication

Resortecs merges thermal engineering, eco-design, and chemical engineering to create innovative solutions that support the textile industry’s circular economy. Their Smart Stitch™ technology offers 16 types of heat-dissolvable threads, allowing for easy, automated disassembly and recycling of textiles. This technology is applicable across various textile products and works with all common stitching machines. Smart Disassembly™ is the first fully automatic thermal disassembly system, combining the precision of manual methods with the efficiency of mechanical processes, enabling recyclers to dismantle textiles five times faster than manual methods while achieving high recyclability rates.