TEXTILES.ORG
Imagine a future when all textiles are recycled, when trucks no longer haul millions of tons of them to landfills and incinerators and it’s easy to put them into a smooth, efficient waste stream at the end of their useful lives.
“Recycling is a nonnegotiable and has to happen,” says Karla Magruder, president and founder of Accelerating Circularity, a nonprofit organization based in New York, N.Y. “We are drowning in waste. The textile industry is a pretty big chunk of global greenhouse emissions.”
Millions of tons of textiles are landfilled because significant hurdles remain to recycling them on a large scale. However, Magruder is optimistic that these challenges will be overcome. “In 20 years, circularity should be common,” she says.
To make circularity a reality, Accelerating Circularity and The Textile Engine, a U.S. National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engine based in Morganton, N.C., are dedicated to finding solutions.
Sorting: The gap in the process
Many companies are honing recycling processes, but Anne Wiper, CEO of The Textile Engine, says one big problem exists in the recycling effort: “the ability to identify and sort materials efficiently to produce clean feedstocks.”
Manual sorting, the current method, is time-consuming, but Wiper says technology is catching up. “AI [artificial intelligence] and robotics are making inroads to accelerate sorting efficiency and capability,” she says. “Several organizations are investing in pilot facilities for sorting that include novel materials identification technologies, but these still need validation in order to perform to scale.”
Melissa Sharp, The Textile Engine’s deputy CEO, research and development, elaborates: “Different materials such as polyester, nylon and cotton all require different recycling technologies,” says Sharp. “That’s why the sorting is so important—because we need to separate various materials to feed them into the appropriate recycling pathways. Having clean feedstock is essential to optimizing physical performance of the recycled materials to retain their highest value.”
The Textile Engine is engaged in multiple projects to validate the ability to accurately sort textile products with different fiber content, construction, dyes and finishes.
“We’re identifying the variables that reduce the accuracy of sorting and determining ways to mitigate the impacts of these disruptors,” says Sharp.
Certain dyes, surface chemistries and material construction make it more difficult for a material to be correctly identified and sorted. Core-spun yarns are one example. If the sensor can’t “see” the core material, it will not identify that part of the overall makeup of the textile. Understanding these technical hurdles unlocks the ability for companies making the sorting machinery to increase accuracy and enable scaled sorting.
New materials to drive circularity
The Textile Engine is pursuing additional avenues to facilitate circularity. Wiper says the organization is investing in research into new regenerative materials.
Plant-based materials are not new to the discussion—cotton, hemp and PLA, for example, have long been recognized as easier to recycle and likely to have fewer environmental impacts as waste. Expanding the options using plant and bio-based materials is a key focus.
“Research through The Textile Engine and conducted at North Carolina State University is investigating plant and microbial sources of new polymers as well as processing techniques needed to go from polymer to fiber to textile,” says Sharp. “Bio-based polymers come from carbohydrates, starches and proteins stored by plants and microorganisms. These raw materials can be extracted, pelletized and extruded to make textile fibers.”
Together, The Textile Engine and NC State are building a research portfolio that will accelerate commercialization of these new materials already available on a small scale while strategically investing in long-term research to discover additional materials.
To bring all this work together, The Textile Engine is forming a textile circularity consortium that connects supply and demand through direct collaboration with product designers, researchers, manufacturers and textile waste collectors to solve the major impediments to circularity and bring new circular goods to market.
325 tons is just the beginning
Meanwhile, Accelerating Circularity is laying the foundation for bringing partners together to recycle 325 tons of used textiles in its Building Circular Systems trials, which is the highest volume the company has pledged to date. The nonprofit made the commitment in September 2024 at the Clinton Global Initiative. The 325 tons include cotton, polyester and next-generation human-made cellulosic fibers. Methods include mechanical recycling trials for cotton and thermal mechanical recycling and chemical recycling for polyester.
The goal is to complete the project in September 2026, about the same time it takes to do production runs. “We’re currently inviting companies to participate in the commitment,” says Magruder.
As part of the project, Accelerating Circularity will work on fostering markets for recycled textiles and developing a mapping tool that identifies collectors, sorters, recyclers, fiber producers, yarn spinners, fabric mills and product manufacturers.
This is just a start. “Our goal now is to scale it and make sure circular supply chains become a normal part of business,” says Magruder.
Trials have shown the need for higher volumes of fabric and for automated sorting and preprocessing. “Through high-volume trials in targeted supply chains, we will be able to develop the business cases for the different processes,” says Magruder.
In 2024, the organization achieved a major success with a project that created a cotton yarn from 20% postconsumer, 20% postindustrial and 60% virgin feedstocks. According to the organization’s Global Cotton Report, the project recycled 27.5 metric tons (30.3 U.S. tons) of feedstock into variations of yarn. What’s more, retail giant Target used the recycled yarn in three trial products last year: a women’s tank top, denim skirt and jersey T-shirt.
“Let’s not forget the gas that is going to make all this run is the orders from the brands,” says Magruder. “And for circularity to commercialize, there needs to be a business case. We are also working on that, but it has to be realistic. There is so much change and innovation happening, and that will not be cost-neutral, which is what the brands would like.”
Will circularity be achieved in 20 years? It’s hard to tell, but there’s no denying that fascinating things are happening in the present. “It’s exciting times,” says Sharp.
Alan Pierce is a freelance writer in Burnsville, Minn., with a background in journalism as a reporter and editor.
SIDEBAR: Recycling: Current and potential opportunities
Here are some areas where recycling is having an effect and could play a significant role.
Castoff material is becoming an income stream.
“Some companies that are doing recycling are working with producers to take their waste from the cutting floor or second quality and repurposing that. It’s actually becoming a competitive space in some ways,” says Melissa Sharp, deputy CEO, research and development, The Textile Engine.
“Another example of this is [polyethylene terephthalate] PET flake from recycled plastic bottles. Because that material is now used in numerous textile products, the demand is increasing raw material costs,” says Sharp.
Pre- and postindustrial textiles and difficult-to-recycle plastics could fill the demand left by increased use of PET.
Anne Wiper, The Textile Engine CEO, is confident that textiles can meet the demand. “Through efficient sorting, we can create a robust feedstock of textile materials, including PET, that we can then funnel to novel chemical recycling facilities that create virgin-quality polyester inputs that can then be processed into high-quality goods,” she says.
Textile recycling could lessen the need for imports.
Wiper thinks the United States can reclaim market share from imports but only if the U.S. continues to invest in the next evolution of manufacturing and ensures that it does not send textile waste offshore.
“We are one of the biggest disposable consumer product countries in the world,” says Wiper. “There is plenty of supply of these waste materials. We still have the infrastructure within North Carolina and our surrounding region to reprocess this waste into valuable, domestically produced goods. The research and technologies The Textile Engine is investing in will be the catalyst for this resurgence in domestic production.”