The achievement demonstrates the ability of Carbios’ biorecycling technology to transform complex waste streams into textile products that meet the requirements of industrial processing.

A European achievement for a global textile industry

The project is the result of collaboration between Carbios, the members of the Fiber-to-Fiber Consortium and European industrial partners covering the textile value chain from polymerization and spinning to knitting, dyeing and garment manufacturing.

Starting from pre-industrial and post-consumer textile waste as well as complex plastic waste, the Carbios process produced monomers meeting quality and performance requirements comparable to those of petrochemical-derived materials. The textile feedstock included materials considered difficult to recycle because of fiber blends such as cotton and elastane as well as contaminants including dyes, finishes and silicones.

The monomers were subsequently repolymerized by Selenis in Portugal to produce more than one ton of high-quality r-PET marketed as EnzyTex. Designed for integration into existing textile production lines, EnzyTex is available as textile-grade r-PET pellets or yarn.

The resulting r-PET was converted into yarn on ANTEX’s industrial production lines in Spain before being knitted into Interlock fabric on Henitex’s industrial equipment in France. TAD (Teintures et Apprêts Danjoux) dyed the fabric in an industrial bath in France, while ToptexCube (Chamatex Group) completed the final garment manufacturing. According to Carbios, all stages were carried out under standard industrial conditions.

The resulting fibers demonstrated compatibility with conventional textile manufacturing processes, with mechanical strength, dyeability and color fastness equivalent to those of virgin polyester. With all manufacturing steps carried out in Europe, the project was designed to demonstrate the scalability of circular textile production without compromising product quality.

Benoît Grenot, CEO of Carbios, sees the result as validation of the technology under textile industry requirements: “This achievement demonstrates that enzymatic recycling meets the highest standards of the textile industry. By converting complex waste streams into high-purity building blocks for the production of recycled polyester, we are proving that circularity is already an operational reality ready for deployment at industrial scale.”

Howard Williams, Director Global Innovation Apparel & Accessories at PUMA, highlighted the use of existing industrial manufacturing processes: “Carbios has demonstrated that complex PET waste can be recycled into high-quality polyester fibers under existing industrial conditions and repurposed into high-quality products.”

For Guillaume Meyzenq, CEO of Salomon, the project particularly demonstrates the importance of cooperation across the textile value chain: “The success of this Consortium highlights the power of collective intelligence to tackle one of our industry’s most complex challenges. By combining our expertise across the entire value chain, we have demonstrated that circularity for high-performance textiles is becoming an industrial reality. Together, we have proven that innovative recycling technologies can transform complex waste into high-quality materials without ever compromising on technical performance. For Salomon, this milestone opens significant opportunities to scale circular solutions and shape a more responsible future for outdoor sports apparel.”

Fiber-to-Fiber Consortium advances textile circularity

Initiated by Carbios, the Fiber-to-Fiber Consortium has focused on demonstrating enzymatic recycling with complex textile waste streams, including blended and contaminated materials. The work has now validated the use of EnzyTex recycled polyester across conventional textile manufacturing processes and demonstrated its performance compared with fossil-based polyester.

At the same time, the production of 100% recycled polyester garments under standard operating conditions provided a test of the technology beyond laboratory or pilot scale. By involving industrial partners in Portugal, Spain and France, the project also connected recycling, polymerization, spinning, knitting, dyeing and garment manufacturing within a European value chain.

According to Carbios and its consortium partners, the results demonstrate that complex textile and plastic waste can be converted into high-quality polyester garments while maintaining the technical performance required by the textile industry.