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Nonwoven Shredding: Turning Waste into Resource

How to shred and recycling nonwoven textiles

Nonwovens are a versatile category of fabrics engineered from fibers that are bonded together without weaving or knitting. They offer unique properties like breathability, absorption, and disposability, making them ideal for various applications across industries. However, once their lifespan ends, nonwovens become waste. WEIMA shredding solutions provide an efficient and sustainable way to manage nonwoven waste by transforming it into a valuable resource.

WEIMA: Your Partner in Sustainable Waste Management

WEIMA manufactures high-performance shredders designed to tackle nonwoven waste. WEIMA machines optimize production lines by efficiently reducing waste volume and promoting a more sustainable future. WEIMA’s F+ rotor reduces the possibility that the material will wrap around the rotor, thus increasing throughput rate!

Types of nonwovens

— Air laid

A nonwoven web forming process that disperses fibers into a fast-moving air stream and condenses them onto a moving screen by means of pressure or vacuum. This type of nonwoven material is typically used in dry and wet wipes, household products, and absorbent cores.

— Composite

Term used when the essential part of the material’s composition can be identified as a nonwoven material. If the essential part cannot be identified, the term composite nonwoven is used when the mass of the nonwoven content is greater than the mass of any other component material. These are used in applications like insulation, medical drapes, and filtration.

— Melt Blown

Also known as “melt blowing”, this is a nonwoven web forming process that extrudes and draws molten polymer resins with heated, high velocity air to form fine filaments that are deposited onto a moving screen. In some ways, this process is similar to the spunbonded process, but melt blown fibers are much finer and generally measured in microns. Melt blowing is a spun laid process.

— Spun Bonded

A spun laid technology in which the filaments have been extruded, drawn and laid on a moving screen to form a web. The term is often interchanged with “spun laid”, but the industry had conventionally adopted the spunbonded term to denote a specific web forming process. This is to differentiate this web forming process from the other two forms of the spun laid web forming, which are melt blown and flash spinning.

— Chemical Bonded

A common method of web bonding by using chemical agents, which may include adhesive resins and solvents. The most common method is resin bonding. Latex resins (adhesive) are applied to the web by a variety of methods: dipping the web into the latex and removing the excess. The resin is usually in a water-based solution, so this bonding process requires heat to remove the water to dry and set the binder into the fabric. This is sometimes referred to as “latex bonding”.

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WEIMA’s Nonwoven shredding secret: The F-Rotor

Our F-rotor is specifically designed to handle filaments and fibers, preventing material wrapping and ensuring smooth operation. Equipped with specialized knives and cutting technology, the F-rotor is ideal for processing nonwoven materials. This innovative design optimizes the shredding process, resulting in efficient and effective waste reduction.

F rotor for veneer, big bags, fibers, ropes, strings

WEIMA F rotor for flexible materials

Shredding Solutions for Nonwovens

WEIMA offers a range of shredders specifically designed to handle various nonwoven materials. Based on your specific application and desired output size, the WEIMA team can recommend the most suitable shredder model, for your desired outcome. Popular choices for nonwoven shredding include:

WLK Single-shaft Shredders

Versatile shredders ideal for initial size reduction of nonwovens, particularly suitable for spunbonded and air laid materials.

WLK series
a free-standing WEIMA WLK15 single-shaft shredder

WEIMA WLK15 single-shaft shredder

Granulated injection moulding production waste

LM Series Granulators

Designed for achieving a more homogenous and finer output size, perfect for melt blown nonwovens destined for remanufacture.

LM 600/1000

Briquette Press

Compress shredded nonwovens into high-density briquettes for efficient transportation and recycling.

Briquette presses

WEIMA TH 514 Briquette Press

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Benefits of Shredding Nonwovens:

Waste reduction

Shredding significantly reduces the volume of nonwoven waste, minimizing landfill space requirements and transportation costs.

Material Recovery

Shredded nonwovens can be further processed to recover valuable fibers for remanufacturing into new products.

Cost efficiency

Recycling shredded nonwoven materials can be more cost-effective than traditional disposal methods, potentially creating new revenue streams

Environmental Impact

By recycling nonwoven materials, you help conserve natural resources and reduce the carbon footprint associated with textile production

Customer cases

Toiletry wipes
Halyard Health
A sanitary paper production waste recycling company integrated a WEIMA WLK 18 single-shaft shredder into their operations to enhance efficiency and sustainability. By effectively shredding large rolls of toiletry wipes, the WLK 18 facilitates metal detection and improves the overall recycling process for their extrusion system.
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PP and PE film
Thrace
Thrace has implemented two WEIMA shredders to optimize their recycling efforts. A WEIMA W5.22 (WKS 2200) single-shaft shredder is used to process bales of PP and PE film, while a WLK 1500 shredder, connected to a roller infeed, handles a separate extrusion process for a nonwoven fabric. This integrated system demonstrates the versatility and effectiveness of WEIMA shredders in various recycling applications.
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Sanitary Wipes
A WEIMA shredding trial efficiently processed the thick cloth typically used in medical cleaning applications.
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Why shred with WEIMA?

WEIMA shredding solutions offer a sustainable and cost-effective way to manage all types of nonwoven waste. By transforming waste into valuable resources, WEIMA helps companies operating in the nonwovens industry minimize their environmental footprint and contribute to a circular economy.