Global innovation platform Fashion for Good has announced that it has started a new project for scaling polyester recycling after its cellulosic chemical recycling project. ‘Full Circle Textile Project – Polyester’, which is built on the framework and lessons of the Full Circle Textile Project launched in September 2020, aims to validate and scale promising technologies in polyester chemical recycling and encourage financing and offtake commitments in the fashion industry. The project brings together a consortium of stakeholders including brands, innovators, supply chain partners and catalytic funders – a structure that has proven successful in driving and scaling disruptive innovation in the industry.
Polyester, the most common fibre in the world, claims 52% of the global fibre market and it also represents a significant portion of the 73% of textiles that are landfilled or incinerated annually. While polyester, a synthetic fibre derived from petroleum, is not biodegradable, the production of virgin fibres also perpetuates the reliance on fossil fuels. Chemical recycling offers a key alternative solution that promises to address the polyester textile waste challenge.
Innovators around the world take action for chemical recycling
The ‘Full Circle Textile Project – Polyester’ is initiated and managed by Fashion for Good and is being realized by a large group of Fashion for Good partners contributing their expertise, financial support and services. These include catalytic funder Laudes Foundation, brand partners Adidas, BESTSELLER, C&A, PVH Corp., Target and Zalando, and affiliate partners Arvind Limited, Fabrics Division of W. L. Gore & Associates and Teijin Frontier, who have recently joined Fashion for Good.
Fashion for Good has enlisted promising innovators in polyester chemical recycling from around the world to participate in the project to attain a clear idea of the innovations best positioned to address the challenges of recycling polyester textiles. These include CuRe Technology, Garbo, gr3n and PerPETual who over the course of the 18-month project will be producing chemically recycled polyester for eventual use in fabric and garment production from post-consumer textile waste. The innovator output will be assessed and validated by participating Fashion for Good brand and supply chain partners at the end of this process.
It is a huge potential to close the loop on textile waste
While textile recycling acts as a crucial lever in driving the fashion industry towards closed-loop production and reducing the environmental impact of textile waste, it also has the potential to eliminate the industry’s dependence on virgin raw materials. In this context, chemical recycling can recycle textile waste into virgin-quality output and address a wider range of textile types, providing huge potential to close the loop on textile waste. However, textile-to-textile chemical recycling, a nascent area of innovation, faces significant barriers of scale. These include a lack of financing for new technologies, limited brand offtake, and limited and expensive output that competes with cheaper, virgin options.
An important step for textile-to-textile polyester recycling
Katrin Ley stated that textile recycling is a key focus for Fashion for Good and said; “With the success of the first full Circle Textiles Project, and proof that a galvanised consortium of stakeholders from across the industry can truly shift the needle, we can now turn our attention to applying these learnings and steps to scale to another critical area; textile-to-textile polyester recycling”.
Anita Chester pointed out that a future without fossil fuels in fashion will need us to scale disruptive innovations such as chemical recycling to replace polyester and made the following statements on the subject; “We are pleased to continue supporting the industry’s efforts through the Full Circles Textiles Project, with chemically recycled polyester. Our funding allows actors across the supply chain to come together and test these path-breaking solutions, and we eagerly await the results of this phase of the project”.
