A Comparative Study of Physical Properties of Yarns and Fabrics Produced from Virgin and Recycled Fibers

Products that are produced by various industries such as agriculture, food, mining, chemistry, and textile cannot meet the needs of humankind since the world's population continues to grow exponentially. Furthermore, the reduction in natural resources forced researchers to produce new synthetic products by utilization of technology and led them to study recycling of existing natural resources. This study compares some properties of yarns and fabrics produced by virgin and recycled polyester and cotton fibers. Virgin cotton, recycled cotton, virgin polyester, recycled polyester fibers, and blends of these fibers were used to manufacture open end rotor yarns. Single jersey fabrics were knitted from these yarns. Physical properties of yarns and fabrics such as tensile strength, unevenness, yarn imperfections, burst strength, pilling and coefficient of kinetic friction were measured and statistically compared. Although generally the properties of yarns and fabrics produced from virgin fibers were better than that of produced from recycled fibers, producing textile products with optimum quality is stressed in this study.