Materials science and digital identification solutions company Avery Dennison said its pilot program with circularity specialist ReCircled confirms how RFID-enabled systems can allow garment sorting to scale.
The pilot, which used Avery Dennison’s embedded RFID sensor technology in garments, demonstrated how the scannable system can accurately and automatically capture data needed to handle garments at scale. The system uses an atma.io-connected product cloud platform to capture, store, manage and share garment life cycle data.
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The RFID-enabled system’s technology allowed for the identification of individual items and captured additional data, such as electronic product codes for material weight, a critical external reporting requirement.
ReCircled and Avery Dennison said the system reduced scanning labor hours by 95.9 percent for one major brand, and 99.9 percent for another. The pilot consistently achieved 99 percent accuracy compared to manual sorting rates, which were 89 and 72 percent for each of the brands.
Colorado-based ReCircled provides tools and infrastructure for brands to enable carbon footprint reduction through textile recycling. The company assesses and breaks down recyclable apparel—removing zippers, buttons and other embellishments—to break down fabric into raw fibers which can then be used to create new yarn or other products.
ReCircled said Avery Dennison’s RFID technology helped eliminate some of the cost and operational inefficiencies of manual product identification, including inaccurate identification of garments. The pilot’s core objective was to quantify the impact of assigning a unique digital identity to each item.
Earlier this year, Avery Dennison released a report outlining the results of its joint initiative with European textile collection and sorting organization Texaid. The two entities investigated the impact of RFID-tagged garments on the European textile collecting and sorting sector, showing gains in both throughput and traceability.
Along with the reduction in cost, labor and human error, the program also aimed to unlock new value by enabling efficient processing for high-value streams such as duty drawback claims on damaged or unsold good. ReCircled found that the pilot demonstrated a clear, data-backed path to a more efficient, profitable and sustainable future for fashion.
“The manual process of receiving, counting, and identifying items is a significant bottleneck today,” said Scott Kuhlman, CEO of ReCircled. “While we explore advanced technologies, we recognize that RFID is a proven and powerful solution today. It allows us to instantly identify hundreds of items, minimizing manual labor, reducing errors, and is the key to unlocking full automation. It is even making single-item duty drawback a reality. We are eliminating waste and accelerating our entire operation.”
ReCircled said that the primary barrier to scaling this technology is the lack of widespread adoption by brands of integrated digital tags at the point of manufacture. And while cost is one of the major barriers to that adoption, the pilot made a case that the processing cost savings of the technology would offset the initial investment.
