TEXTILE WASTE FROM CONFECTION INDUSTRIES AND POSSIBILITIES FOR ITS RECYCLING

Many of the processes and products associated with modern lifestyles have negative eff ects on the environment. Among the signifi cant consequences are the rising costs of treating and disposing of excessive amounts of waste. Proper management of the large amounts of waste generated by the confection industry is of high importance to the good of society. Solving the problem of textile waste is of great importance for the garment production facilities in order to increase competitiveness, make additional profi ts and reduce disposal costs. In this paper were analyzed two confection companies, in order to determine the amount of textile waste that occurs in both companies, and also was made a research for utilization of the generated textile waste through its application as a raw material for the production of composite materials.


INTRODUCTION
The environmental and social impacts of manufacturing are becoming very important engineering topics so that in the manufacturing industry, environmental issues are the focus of attention. In this concern, the material life cycle is very important. This cycle consists of stages of extraction, synthesis/processing, product design/production, application and fi nal disposal. Material, energy and environmental interactions/exchanges are important factors for the effi cient functioning of the material cycle. The earth is a closed system in which its material and energy resources are limited to a certain extent. Therefore, a number of industries are incorporating new strategies into the design process, known as eco design or environmental design. The purpose of these strategies is: minimizing energy consumption, minimizing material consumption, excluding hazardous substances and recyclability. Environmental problems include pollution, adverse environmental impacts and waste disposal. Recycling used products and applying green design can improve some of these environmental problems. Many of the processes and products associated with modern lifestyles have negative eff ects on the environment. Among the signifi cant consequences are the rising costs of treating and disposing of excessive amounts of waste. Proper management of large amounts of waste generated by households, industry and economy is of great importance for the well-being of society.
In the past, poor waste management practices have led to the degradation of ecosystems, as well as the loss of valuable natural resources and potential health risks.
In 21th century, textile and fashion consumption in the world has increased dramatically as a result of various factors such as the growth in world population, overall improvement of living standards and the rapid rise of the fast-fashion. The total volume of textile and fashion production at the global level is estimated to be more than 80 million tons annually [1, 2, 3].
The term "waste" is given a diff erent meaning depending on whether it is understood in a narrower or broader sense of the word. As a rule, waste is a collective term that means substances that in households, industry and agriculture at a certain time and place have become unusable or "useless".
Textile waste is composed of natural and synthetic polymeric materials such as: cotton, polyester, nylon, polypropylene and others. The primary source of raw materials for the production of synthetic polymeric materials is oil. Oil is a non-renewable natural resource, and global oil reserves can last for at least several hundred more years at the rate of current consumption. The production of cotton, which is a renewable natural source, requires energy and chemicals, which come from non-renewable resources. The imposed environmental dangers from the over-accumulation of textile waste and from the reduction of natural resources, oil and all raw materials related to the further production of textile materials, have prompted the need to investigate the possibility of re-use of textile waste. The quantities of textile waste that are increasing daily, the pressure and energy during the processes of its disposal or incineration, performed properly or not, impose the need to introduce sustainable ways of textile waste management. Sustainable ways of textile waste management will contribute to reduced waste generation -more effi cient use of raw materials and reuse of production fl ows from production, reduction of disposal costs, which inevitably imposes the need to restructure clothing companies and raise environmental awareness of waste generators [4,5,6,7].
The problem of textile waste can be most economically solved by introducing so-called waste-free or closed-loop technologies. The introduction of new technologies that do not form waste materials in production processes, on the one hand protects the environment, and on the other hand reduces the costs of waste handling or disposal, and also saves on primary raw materials and energy. For the effi cient implementation of an integrated textile waste management system that will be cost eff ective, usually the fi rst step is the modernization of the enterprise. Modernization is associated with technological and process changes accompanied by changes in equipment, operational settings, as well as research into the possibilities of reusing textile waste as a potential raw material. This provides a reduction in landfi ll costs on the one hand and increases the profi tability and competitiveness of the enterprise through the sale or use of the generated waste on the other hand. However, in this transitional period, when a satisfactory level of technical, technological and organizational solutions regarding waste has not yet been achieved, great involvement of all entities is needed, starting from the household, the company, the municipality and the state, in resolving issues related to waste materials [8,9,10].
In the frame of this paper will be analyzed the amount of textile waste that is created in clothing companies and the possibilities for its recycling -as one of the procedures for waste management, with the possibility of valorization of this type of waste. Recycling used textiles, instead of disposing them as a waste, is a desirable approach for several reasons. First, the use of recycled textiles eliminates the need to extract raw materials from the ground, thus preserving natural resources and eliminating any environmental impact associated with the extraction phase. Second, the energy needs for refi ning and recycling recycled textiles are usually lower than those for natural raw materials.

EXPERIMENTAL
The focus of effi ciency in the clothing industry is to reduce raw material costs, which often reach up to 75% of total production costs. In recent years we have witnessed a continuous increase in the price of textiles, so each percentage of more effi cient use of materials directly aff ects the total production costs. The processes of constructive preparation and the processes of planning, laying and cutting in the cutting department, determine the use of textile materials.
Additionally, in this research the following goals and objectives where set: Determining the amount of solid textile waste generated in clothing companies. Possibility to use textile waste as input raw material in another production process.
In order to determine the amount of textile waste that occurs in the process of cutting by work order, a research was done in two confection companies. Additionally, research was conducted on the utilization of the generated textile waste through its application as a raw material for the production of composite materials. This research was made in other company, which is specialized for composite materials production. The two analyzed confection companies (A and B), whose main activity is the production of clothes, diff er in terms of organization, number of employees, production capacity, sophistication of the technology used in the technological process of cutting (Table 1).
These two companies were selected in terms of capacity and technology of clothing production in order to determine the possible factors that aff ect the generation of textile waste. In both companies, the function of processing the work order was analyzed and the real percentage of textile waste that occurs in the tailoring process was defi ned.
The procedure for obtaining composite material based on textile waste in the company for composite production was as follows: The textile waste generated from the confection companies (from cotton fabric), was with diff erent irregular shapes and dimensions, as well as diff erent impurities. In order to use the waste as an eff ective reinforcing material, fi rstly was cleaned of various impurities, and then chopped into more regular shapes. As polymer matrix for the composites production was used the matrix that was in that moment in stock in the company.
Appropriate quantities of textile waste and polymer matrix were measured -accepting the recommendation of the company, and as a result of their experience in the composite production. The quantities of textile waste and polymer matrix were mixed in a universal composite mass mixing machine used by the company for such purposes. Care was taken to ensure that the textile waste was well soaked with the polymer matrix, that there was no presence of dirt from other substances and other impurities. The process was controlled visually.
Composite tiles were produced from the obtained composite mass by compression pressing in a laboratory. The quality of the produced composites was determined only visually because that was not the aim of this paper.
The idea for this research was to make initial research on the possibilities of using textile waste in the production of composites, which is of potential interest for composite producers and clothing production facilities in order to increase competitiveness and make additional profi ts.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
From the performed analyzes in the both companies, the solid textile waste that was created in the process of cutting was determined. It is noted that the two companies have diff erent cutting system, namely, the company A performs the manual production of the cutting layouts and manual measurement of their length and width, while the company B does it by computer with the help of US systems for cutting. As a result, there are diff erences in the cutting process in the two companies, and this generates diff erent amount of textile waste. The approach for making the same cloth-ing product in both forms was diff erent and the waste generated during its production was diff erent.
The examined article of women's shirt is made of textile material which is made of 90% cotton and 10% elastane. The material is monochromatic and the measured areal weight is 184 g/m 2 . For cutting of 150 confection units, 3 coils were delivered or total 218 m of textile material ( Table 3).
The cutting layouts are made directly on the textile material, so the operator repeats this procedure for each (cut) layer. The basic data (length and width of the cutting layout) presented in Table 4 are obtained by their manual measurement.
Material costs are a major component of production costs with 50 -70% in the total production costs for clothes. Table 5 shows the values for the planned length of textile material for cutting the textile article, according to the cutting plan given in Table 4.

Losses of textile material due to intermediate loss and quantities of textile waste generated from cuttings
The degree of utilization is not known for the examined work order, due to the manual production of the cutting layouts. Therefore, the textile waste generated during the cutting process of each of the cutting    layers is manually measured. The measured quantities of textile waste generated during the cutting process of a women's shirt are presented in Table 6.
Signifi cant material/fabric losses occur because the length of the material in the textile coil does not always correspond to the integer lengths of the seam. Therefore, it is of great importance to plan the utilization of the length of the textile coils in relation to the length of the diff erent cut layers. Research conducted in the clothing company has shown that the planning of textile coils for cutting was not applied here. Table 7 shows that the total losses due to defects and leftovers at the ends of the textile coils are 5.1 m. In the cutting process of the work order a total of 212.9 m of fabric was used. The total amount of textile waste generated during tailoring of a work order is the sum of the losses of textile material that occur due to the intermediate loss and the losses due to defects and residues at the ends of the textile coils.
Based on the results of the shown researches, in the confection company B the amount of created waste was about 7%. Compared to the results of the research in the clothing company A, the quantities of generated textile waste were signifi cantly reduced. This is primarily due to her many years of experience in the production of shirts and the application of CAD system for effi cient interactive planning of cutting layouts. In this company the planning of the order of the textile coils for laying was not used, which aff ects the waste from coil leftover to range from 1.4 -1.7%.  From Table 8 it is visible that when cutting an article of women's shirt, 12% of the total amount of used textile is converted into textile waste.

Examination of the possibility for textile waste application in the production of composite materials
Composites were produced by compression molding of the composite mixture based on textile waste as a reinforcement and epoxy resin as polymer matrix. The conditions for the compression molding and obtaining of the composite plates were made based on the experience of the company.
As a result, were obtained composite plates that visually had fi nal dimensions, mass and volume. The obtained positive results are an introduction to further more extensive and comprehensive researches on the use of textile waste in this type of applications. Also, it is necessary to make analyzes of those composite plates that would be compared with some conventional composites, and their comparison will classify them into composite materials that will be competitively priced and applicable for given purposes.
Considering the fact that large quantities of textile waste are generated within the garment industry, this research is very important, because it provides positive initial assumptions about the possibility of using textile waste as a potential raw material. In addition, the use of textile waste in the production of industrial products will reduce the costs of textile waste disposal and at the same time will contribute to increasing the profi tability and competitiveness of clothing companies.

CONCLUSION
From the obtained results can be concluded that:  Diff erent quantities of textile waste are produced in the analysed confection companies. In general, a larger amount of textile waste is generated in the clothing company A. One of the main reasons for the variation in the percentage of waste in companies that produce similar items is the diff erence in the level of technological equipment. The confection company A, as a result of ineff ective planning and lack of CAD system, the quantities of textile waste range from about 12%. In contrast to this at the clothing company B, as a result of many years of experience in the production of a standard product and the effi cient interactive planning of the cutting layouts with the application of CAD system, the quantities of textile waste range from about 7%.  In both companies, planning of the textile coils for cutting was not applied, which contributes to the increase of the percentage of waste, as a result of defects and coil leftovers.
 Solving the problem of textile waste is of great importance for the garment production facilities in order to increase competitiveness, achieve additional profi ts and reduce disposal costs. Within this paper, was tried for re-use of the generated textile waste.  With method of compression moulding are produced composite materials from polymer matrix and textile waste as a reinforcement.  Composite materials that visually had good quality, indicated the possibility of successful use of textile waste in the production of composites, and at the same time provide a good basis for further researches in this area.