The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA) has won the Gold Award of the 2020 Hong Kong Green Innovations Awards (HKGIA) for its research project, Garment-to-Garment Recycle System (G2G).

In addition, the project was last week honoured by the Japan Institute of Design Promotion’s Good Design Best100 2021. The Good Design Exhibition 2021 is now running at the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub until  November 21^st 2021.

The awards recognise the project as  pioneering technology that helps to achieve a sustainable future for both the industry and society.

 “Speed, scale and impact have been our guiding principles and have directed our work,” said Edwin Keh, HKRITA’s CEO. “The G2G has already won four international and local awards since its launch in 2018. These two new accolades further recognise it as proof of a scalable innovation that has high impact potential.”

The G2G is a unique mini-scale production line set up in a retail shop in the Mills, Hong Kong, where it recycles used garments into new ones. The whole process takes place in a 40-foot container enclosed in double-glazed glass, so that visitors can view the entire recycling process and deepen their experience by recycling their own used clothes.

The G2G project is currently in its second phase and features an AI algorithm developed to estimate recycle process parameter settings and automatically review if the fibres need to be reopened. The second phase technology also has a 3-in-1 fibre processing system installed, which increases the system’s degree of automation as well as its capacity. It links up to a 3D body scanner which measures the shape of customers to ensure the recycled garment fits well.

G2G is an Innovation and Technology Fund project and also sponsored by Novetex Textiles in collaboration with the H&M Foundation.

www.hkrita.com