TEXTILES.ORG
Many consider advanced textile recycling, including chemical, enzymatic and molecular technologies, to be the path to true circularity, making waste into materials not once but repeatedly.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 73% of collected textile apparel waste is landfilled or incinerated globally. Textile Exchangereports that of the 124 million metric tons of textiles produced in 2023, less than 1% consisted of recycled textile fibers. The organization also says that the biggest share of the global fiber market—64% in 2021—is made from petroleum-based synthetics: polyester, nylon, acrylic and others. In advanced recycling, synthetic textile fibers are depolymerized—broken down into monomers—and then recombined in various ways to create new fibers.
But to be successful, the use of these cutting-edge technologies requires partners to ensure a steady supply of textile waste inputs,
a reliable supply chain for sorting and processing them, and offtake agreements from downstream brands and manufacturers.
Economic viability
Reju™, a materials regeneration company, has created a game plan that will turn hard-to-recycle polyester waste into new textiles in an infinite loop. Owned by Technip Energies, Reju is led by apparel industry veteran Patrik Frisk as CEO and Technip’s Alain Poincheval as COO. The company was incorporated a year ago and has just opened its Regeneration Hub Zero in Frankfurt, Germany, where it expects to begin deliveries in 2025 of Reju polyester made from textile waste.
Reju utilizes VolCat, an organic catalytic chemical recycling process for polyester textiles and packaging, developed in a joint venture between Technip, IBM and Under Armour®, although Under Armour is no longer involved. The process extracts clean monomers while creating 50% less carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions than virgin polyester. Clean monomers result in better yarn and better fabric.
“We want to help the brands make better-performing products, such as fibers that shed less,” says Frisk. The process will also enable the circular regeneration of polyester waste for industrial, automotive and aviation textiles.
Reju has a team of textile and marketing experts, including textile aggregators, fiber and yarn spinners, textile mills, and major brands, and it’s teaming with Goodwill and WM® to secure a supply of unsaleable textile waste.
Textile donations in the thrift shop business that can’t be sold are processed into rags, fiberfill and insulation; exported to secondhand markets; or landfilled or incinerated.
Over the past two years, Goodwill took a deep dive into valorizing waste textiles as feedstock for new fiber, teaming with fellow nonprofit Accelerating Circularity for a pilot study funded with a $1.28 million grant from the Walmart Foundation.
More than 25 local Goodwill organizations came together to form four regional hubs, based in Canada, Michigan and the Northeast and Southeast of the U.S., to focus on scaling textile reuse and recycling. Each hub put together business plans outlining a strategy to create feedstock from unwearable textile donations, including aggregating, sorting and analyzing fiber content.
A key finding of Goodwill’s study was the suitability of 60% of its post-retail textiles for use as recycling feedstock for current technologies. “Our sorting studies have primarily used near-infrared scanners to identify the fiber composition of textiles, which includes devices developed by Matoha and Sortile,” says Brittany Dickinson, director of sustainability at Goodwill.
Dickinson adds, “Goodwill is focused on developing the skills and systems to transform textiles into a feedstock that meets recyclers’ various specifications.”
Reju is eyeing the eastern U.S. and Western Europe for its first regeneration hubs “because that’s where the waste is. Waste is local; offtake is global,” says Frisk. While initial volumes will be small, future sites will have a capacity of 50,000 metric tons (55,116 U.S. tons).
Scaling up molecular recycling
In 2021, Eastman Chemical Company commercialized two technologies for the transformation of hard-to-recycle plastic waste into new material for high-quality polymers. In March 2024, the company’s molecular recycling plant in Kingsport, Tenn., achieved on-spec initial production, moving toward reaching its capacity to recycle 110,000 metric tons (121,254 U.S. tons) of plastic waste annually, including plastic packaging, carpet and polyester.
“Today, with one plant, the level of feedstock is manageable,” says Chris Killian, Eastman senior VP and chief technology officer. “But the infrastructure challenge is to grow.”
Eastman’s polyester renewal technology employs methanolysis to convert polyesters back to their basic monomers and create new materials. Eastman’s carbon renewal technology processes a wider spectrum of plastic waste materials, deriving syngas used in the production of fibers such as Eastman’s Naia™ recyclable cellulose acetate.
While much of Kingsport’s recycled output is durable consumer plastics, Eastman recently collaborated with apparel brand Patagonia to recycle 8,000 pounds of pre- and postconsumer clothing waste into new fiber.
The company has an additional molecular recycling plant in the works in Longview, Texas, partially funded by a U.S. Department of Energy contract. According to Killian, the Texas plant will leverage solar energy with thermal battery technology for heat and power, lowering CO2e, and will also feature a polymerization facility. The goal for the two plants is to recycle 250 million pounds of plastic annually, which the existing plant has reached, and double that by 2030 with the second plant coming online in 2028.
Eastman will build its third molecular recycling plant in Normandy, France. “We are currently working on offtake contracts,” says Killian. “Europe has a stronger regulatory environment as well as more advanced collection systems. Ultimately, our commercial customer base, as well as our inputs, need to be regional.”
Recycling at ‘hyper-scale’
Syre, a textile impact company based in Stockholm, Sweden, launched this year with a mission to establish textile-to-textile plants producing circular polyester worldwide. The company’s goal is to have multiple production plants up and running at capacity by 2032, producing more than 3 million metric tons (3.3 million U.S. tons) of circular PET.
Funded by H&M Group, Vargas, Volvo, TPG Rise Climate and other investors, Syre employs a depolymerization process that produces Bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET), which then undergoes a polymerization process to become PET. More sustainable than rPET created from postconsumer plastic bottles, Syre’s textile-to-textile production can also handle polyester blends and reduces CO2e by up to 85% compared to oil-based virgin polyester.
Syre is working with the apparel, automotive and home interior industries. Emma Stjernlöf, chief communications and people officer at Syre, says H&M’s commitment includes an offtake agreement for $600 million worth of circular PET over seven years.
Syre is also putting down roots in North Carolina. The company acquired its technology with the purchase of N.C.-based Premirr Plastics, which has spent the last nine years developing ways to turn consumer waste into circular PET.
The company’s next step is a blueprint plant to be built in partnership with Selenis, a global supplier of high-quality specialty polyester. Syre’s facility will adjoin Selenis’ production plant in Cedar Creek, N.C., to create a continuous production flow. Scheduled to be operational in mid-2025, the plant will be capable of delivering up to 10,000 metric tons (11,023 U.S. tons) of circular polyester annually.
Advanced recycling from ‘Down Under’
Australian enviro-tech innovator Samsara Eco is creating infinitely recyclable nylon 6,6 from textile waste through a patented technology using plastic-eating enzymes called EosEco™. According to Sarah Cook, the company’s chief commercial officer and COO, the enzymatic process is capable of recycling polyester, nylon 6 and blended textiles.
Backed by Main Sequence and Woolworths Group, Samsara launched in 2020 out of Australian National University. With a facility near Canberra and R&D at the university labs, a new Commercial Innovation Hub in Jerrabomberra, New South Wales, is due to open in mid-2025.
“We’re also planning to build the world’s first nylon 6,6 enzymatic recycling facility with NILIT® Ltd. in Southeast Asia, which we’re targeting to be operational by late 2026,” says Cook. “Our facilities in Australia have already enabled us to produce a sold-out clothing line with lululemon. … Our supply chain for offtakes is with spinners, yarn and textile manufacturers as well as global brands.”
The company also plans to scale its tech to infinitely recycle all forms of plastics and tackle other supply chains such as automotive, electronics and consumer packaged goods. “EosEco reduces the end-to-end recycling time, while also operating at a lower temperature and pressure to ultimately reduce waste and carbon emissions. By solving the circularity piece of the puzzle for all plastics, we’re making it possible to imagine a more sustainable future,” CEO Paul Riley states in a press release.
Debra Cobb is a freelance writer based in North Carolina with special expertise in the textile industry.