18 June 2025

Here are the identified key challenges and proposed interventions:

• Limited access to quality feedstock: Despite abundant textile waste, recyclers face high costs and material shortages due to low collection rates and lack of incentives for sorters to meet recycling specs.
• Low sorting efficiency and critical pre-processing gaps: Manual sorting remains dominant but inefficient; investment in automated technologies (like NIR and AI) and co-located mechanical/chemical pre-processing is essential to improve feedstock quality and consistency.
• High operational costs challenge business viability: Labour and energy costs drive up OPEX; automation and access to renewable energy are key to reducing costs and scaling operations.
• Environmental benefits depend on process efficiency: Recycling can reduce fibre-related impacts, but outcomes vary by material and technology; clean energy use and fibre compatibility with low-impact manufacturing are essential.
• Supportive policy is critical: Introduce fair economic incentives, align End-of-Waste criteria with market needs, set realistic recycled content targets, and harmonise recyclability standards — while embedding recycling within a broader circular strategy focused on reuse, repair, and design.

Read more about T-REX project at this link.

ABOUT FASHION FOR GOOD
Fashion for Good unites the entire fashion ecosystem, from brands, retailers, suppliers, innovators, and funders to collaborate and drive change towards a circular and regenerative industry. At the core, Fashion for Good enables disruptive innovators on their journey to scale, providing hands-on support, connection to capital, and access to a robust ecosystem of experts. This work brings the most powerful innovations to market faster to create decisive system change.
Through its coalition of partners, Fashion for Good designs and executes catalytic interventions and new ways of value creation that drive towards the right side of history as the new economy emerges.

This transformative work is made possible by the support of Laudes Foundation, co-founder William McDonough and corporate partners, adidas, Arvind Limited, BESTSELLER, Birla Cellulose, C&A, CHANEL, Inditex, Kering, Levi Strauss & Co., Norrøna, ON, Otto Group, Paradise Textiles, Patagonia, PDS Limited, PVH Corp., Reformation, Shahi Exports, Target, Teijin Frontier, and Zalando.

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