Waste from the textile industry as a nitrogen carrier organic for the horticulture sector

Abstract

The fast fashion phenomenon generates significant amounts of textile waste every year. Only in Europe it is 12.6 million Mg, of which oak trees and footwear account for 5.2 million Mg. One way to manage them is material recycling, where new fabric will be created in the processes of fiberising, spinning and weaving, but the share of waste processed in this way is 1% of the mass. Another method is development aimed at improving the properties of soil by using physically and chemically modified waste and using it as a soil improver. The study examined the possibility of using waste cotton fabric as a carrier of an organic nitrogen fertilizer with a sustainable effect. Scraps of waste cotton fabric with a grammage of 408 g/m2 were saturated with hot collagen solution, which after drying constituted 1/3 of the weight of the samples. The scraps prepared in this way were used as fertilizer for light soil with a granulometric composition of clay sand. Rinsing with rainwater at a temperature of 20^oC was used. The nitrogen contained in the collagen was released into the soil solution within 42 days, with the maximum concentration occurring 4-6 days after application. An additional advantage of the obtained material is the natural water capacity of cotton, which is important from the point of view of collecting water in light soils. At the same time, slow degradation of the cotton fabric was observed, which broke into fragments after 3 months of incubation. The applied modification of waste cotton fabric makes it possible to use textile waste as a fertilizer carrier, which will reduce the weight of cotton waste sent for incineration or landfilled.