Circular Approach of Ramon’s Traditional Cleaning Cloths
It’s estimated that on average, each Briton throws away 1kg of textiles every year. Fast fashion and the increasing desire to buy new clothes more frequently are leading to higher volumes of textile waste across the planet. So, what happens to all these unwanted and discarded garments? Unfortunately, the vast majority end up in landfills, with a reported 5% of landfill space taken up by textile waste. Only 8% of old clothes are reused, and just 10% are recycled globally*.
From this recycled waste, we at Ramon Hygiene are proud to have been producing high-quality cleaning consumables for the past seven decades, eliminating the need to use virgin cotton. It takes an average of 10,000-20,000 litres of water to cultivate just one kilogram of raw cotton, depending on where it is grown. Cotton is the most widely used natural material and the second most-produced fibre globally, accounting for 24% of global fibre production.
Did you know that every ton of recycled cotton saves 765,000 litres of water**? This is one of its biggest strengths. Recycled cotton vastly reduces water consumption and CO2 emissions and eliminates the need for additional pesticides and fertilisers.
All the yarn used for our cotton mops and dishcloths is manufactured from regenerated textiles. This recycling process prevents tons of textile waste from entering landfills each year.
Yarn is produced from regenerated textile waste through a predominantly mechanical recycling process. Initially, fabrics and garments are sorted by colour, and fibre type. In the case of mops for example. Optic white, is the main colour and a lot of this material, called shoddy comes from tee shirts and leisurewear. The textile waste is categorized as pre or post-consumer waste. “Pre” is waste created from virgin textile fabric production, whether spinning, weaving or knitting and “post” is clothing, household textiles etc.
After this separation, the fabrics go through a machine that shreds them into a crude fibre. The raw fibre is then transformed into a compressed web, called a lap, ready to be fed into the carding engines.
- Carding: Fibres are separated and aligned to form a continuous strand called a sliver.
- Drawing: Several slivers are combined and stretched to improve fibre alignment and levelness.
- Spinning: The drawn slivers are spun on ring frames to form yarn, that vary in thickness and twist (Count) depending on the desired product properties. This is called regenerated yarn.
Once converted and wound onto large cones, this yarn is sent to Ramon to be reused in the production of our traditional cleaning cloths. The production process at Ramon involves:
- Setting Up the Knitting Machines: The received bobbins of yarn are mounted onto a circular knitting machine ready for the knitting process.
- Knitting Process: The machine knits the yarn into a continuous seamless tube of fabric, creating the characteristic knit pattern of stockinette.
- Quality Check: The knitted fabric undergoes an initial inspection to check for defects such as holes, dropped stitches, or uneven knitting. Defective sections are removed.
- Cutting: The continuous tubular fabric is fed into Akab cutting machines, which cut the fabric into specified lengths, ensuring precise and consistent cutting.
- Overlocking: After cutting, the edges of the fabric are immediately finished using Akab overlocking machines. Overlocking secures the edges and prevents fraying, enhancing the durability of the cleaning cloths.
All excess waste from the cutting process is collected, baled, and sent back to our spinning partners to be converted back into yarn, creating a closed-loop solution and a truly sustainable, environmentally friendly product. Once the cloths are produced and after a final inspection, they are sent to our packing department to be folded and bundled, ready for packing and shipping to our valued customers.
Ramon Hygiene is a proud UK manufacturer and has been producing cloths in a similar manner for over 72 years. All of Ramon’s cloths have a very high cotton content, making them soft, super absorbent, and durable. As cotton is a natural material, the fibre decomposes much quicker than synthetic fibres, adding to its environmental credentials.
Traditional stockinette cloths are extremely hardwearing and, when cared for correctly, will last for a very long time. Consumers looking to adopt the ‘Three R’s’ (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) into their cleaning procedures and who require a durable, absorbent, and truly sustainable cloth would be hard-pressed to find a better solution than Ramon’s traditional cleaning cloths.
For more information on the Ramon traditional cleaning cloths or any other product or services, please contact sales@ramonhygiene.co.uk or call 0116 276 1881.
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