Project Findings Highlight Immense Opportunity To Accelerate Textile Recycling

“As fibre-to-fibre textile recycling commitments and policies increase, as well as the amount of textile waste collected, the infrastructure required to drive the move towards circular systems requires significant investment to scale. To make informed investment decisions, as well as assess the business case for monetisation through recycling, a deeper understanding of the characteristics of today's European post-consumer textiles landscape is needed. This project lays the knowledge foundation that will enable key players to set into motion.” — Katrin Ley, Managing Director at Fashion for Good

The Sorting for Circularity Europe Project was initiated to address this knowledge gap, exploring post-consumer textiles in depth, providing meaningful information on which to base investment decisions, policy developments and next steps towards circularity. Furthermore, the project aims to increase harmonisation between the sorting and recycling industry, stimulating a recycling market for unwanted textiles that can generate new revenue streams for sorters and unlock demand for recyclers and brands. The full report of the project can be read here.

Conducting the analyses across Europe, in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the project provides the most comprehensive and representative snapshot of textile waste composition in Europe to date. The results point to promising opportunities for recapturing value while diverting textiles from downcycling and incineration. The results also inform brands of the best circular design practises to adopt, as well as textile collection agencies and organisations to build the necessary infrastructure and better educate and engage consumers on proper sorting and disposal practices.

LEAPING FORWARD THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Using innovative Near Infrared (NIR) technology to determine garment composition, traditionally a task performed manually, the project analysed a total of 21 tonnes of post-consumer garments. On-the-ground examinations were performed over two time periods, autumn/winter 2021 and spring/summer 2022, to account for seasonal changes in the types of garments entering sorting facilities.

Cotton was found to be the dominant fibre (42%), followed by a large presence of material blends (32%), almost half of which consisted of polycottons (12%). Based on three characteristics, material composition, presence of disruptors, such as zippers and buttons, and colour, 21% of the materials analysed are deemed suitable as feedstock for mechanical recycling, while 53% are suitable for chemical recycling. This presents a significant opportunity for circularity as currently only 2% of post consumer textiles are diverted to fibre-to-fibre recycling.

BUILDING A ROBUST SORTING AND RECYCLING
INFRASTRUCTURE

In addition to the report, two further industry resources, developed by Circle Economy, have been made available; Recycler’s Database, a database mapping textile recycler's capabilities, illuminating crucial gaps between the sorting and recycling industry, and an open source Sorters Handbook to guide the sorting industry - encouraging and supporting further analyses.

Building off the project, two open digital platforms, Reverse Resources and Refashion Recycle, to match textile waste from sorters with recyclers, have been identified as critical tools to further enable the connections needed to drive greater circularity in the years to come. Following an assessment of suitable digital platforms within and outside of the textile industry, Reverse Resources have 39 active recyclers and 32 active waste handlers/sorters on their platform, while Refashion Recycle have 103 recyclers and 66 sorters onboarded onto their platform. This represents a large portion of the European circularity industry.

PATH TOWARDS A CIRCULAR INDUSTRY

The amount of textile waste collected is likely to increase, due to growing consumption and disposal, and incoming legislation, such as the Waste Framework Directive. Overall, a strong business case for sorting low value textiles is required in order to maintain and increase sorting capacity in Europe. To support this retention and development of sorting capacity, increased investments and policy changes play a key role.