Samenvatting

The textile trading system is based on the ‘take-make-use-dispose’ linear economic model: as high amounts of resources are utilized at low costs, the final products become waste after being used for a only short period. This creates an unbalanced system that has to change. A circular economy model can contribute to this change. This model aims to keep resources flowing for as long as possible, to generate the highest possible value throughout use, and to recycle them at the end of their life cycles. The Dutch Government has set the goal to become circular in 2050. However, textile products are complex and recycling techniques are in development. The Dutch government including the ministry of Defence is a significant user of textiles. Their workwear garments are not circular.
 
As a result the ministry has established the research project Signwear in collaboration with the Saxion research group Sustainable & Functional Textiles. Signwear aims to set up protocols, to investigate the (technical) conditions under which textile products that are used by the Ministry of Defence, can be considered circular. For this research, three workwear garments have been selected. Two operational garments, trousers Kmar and trousers Basic, a non-operational garment, a men shirt. The following research question has been formulated: How can the choice of alternative textiles – other than the textiles used in the selected worker and shirt of the Dutch Ministry of Defence – increase the circularity of the products?
Circular products are defined by slowing recourse loops (design for preserving product integrity), closing resource loops (recycling in design and design for recycling) and narrowing resource flows (reduce the environmental impact over the lifetime of the product). This research aims to provide the ministry of Defence of reliable information as a basis for future replacement of virgin produced textiles with state of art circular alternatives. On the condition that the environmental impact is lowered by the alternative use of textiles than the conventional garments.
 
This research started with a literature review that provided definitions of circular strategies, circular design guidelines, textile recycling and the role of workwear in the transition towards a circular economy.
The first method included disassembling of the garments and an interview with the ministry of defence on the garments’ functional requirements. The state of the art was identified by interviewing stakeholders in the workwear industry and understand their circular practices. Additionally, the stakeholders were asked to supply their latest developments in circular textiles. These materials were evaluated based on the most important physical properties. Therefore, the trousers were tested on, tensile strength, pilling, abrasion and fabric touch.  The shirt samples were tested on pilling, abrasion and fabric touch. The samples that meet the requirements of the ministry of defence were evaluated on environmental impact.
It can be concluded that one sample meet the requirements of the trousers Basic and trousers Kmar. For the shirt, a suitable replacement has not been found due to the higher environmental impact and containing unrecyclable raw materials.
The results of this study suggest that at the time writing, circular strategies are only in early development in the workwear industry. The ministry of Defence is a front runner when it comes the re-use, recycling and repurpose strategies. Future research should explore product life extension strategies and opportunities to decrease the weight in garments.