I watched a TV documentary recently about used clothing being sent by Charities in Western Countries to African countries where some of it is sold to locals however between 50 % to 80 % of it is often unusable and it ends up in massive landfills , some of it even ends up clogging sewer and stormwater drains or being washed out to sea.
In Ghana for example , they are dumping 160 tonnes per day of unwanted clothing in the capital city alone.
Instead of this unwanted clothing being dumped or burnt , Is it possible to make it into construction materials such as compressed fibre board sheeting or bricks ?
Other types of fibres are already used to create insulation panels and also compressed with fire retardant chemicals to make compressed fibre sheet with similar properties to plywood.
The properties the end product would need to have are to be fire resistant , have good structural properties , be waterproof and not have any outgassing of harmful VOC or other chemicals.
There are distinct groups of clothing which might have to be sorted so they can be recycled , Polyester , Wool and Cotton would be the most common.
If appropriate efficient manufacturing processes could be identified i would like to campaign for international clothing and fashion labels , or other charity groups to sponsor the manufacture of small plant equipment , shipping it to these countries and training locals to utilise it for manufacturing.
What do the materials science guys here think of processes that may enable this ?
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