MAPPING THE GLOBAL TEXTILE WASTE LANDSCAPE

Refiberd offers an integrated automated sorting to deal with blended post-consumer textile waste. By utilising a combination of spectroscopy, machine learning and image processing for sorting chemical and mechanical recycling, Refiberd’s technology can reduce material waste to landfill and lower CO2 emissions.

Protein Evolution is a chemical recycler using enzymes for recycling waste, ranging from hard plastics to polyester fibres. Through use of artificial intelligence screening methods and detailed enzyme engineering, Protein Evolution screens and designs enzymes specifically for depolymerising polyester, with polyamide and polyurethane enzymes in development. 

Re:lastane focuses on the separation and recycling of polyester and polyester blended fabrics. They have developed a patent pending “Relastane” polyester recycling system, which realises the separation of polyester fibres from cotton, nylon, spandex and other blended fibres. 

DePoly’s advanced recycling technology converts unsorted, dirty end-of-life plastics and fibres into virgin-grade raw materials. They focus on items that cannot typically be recycled due to complex blends, dyes, contaminants, etc. Their low-energy process uses simple, green chemicals and operates at room temperature, all without the need to pre-wash, pre-sort, or separate out other materials. 

IDELAM’s technology enables delamination of multi-material products or waste, such as jackets and footwear, through processes utilising supercritical CO2. The disassembly of such products allows for more effective recycling and reuse of substrates. 

Ioncell Oy develops patented Ioncell® technology, which transforms cellulosic bio-materials into new, high-performance textile fibres in a sustainable way. Their technology can improve the quality when textile waste is recycled into new fibres, therefore supporting the inevitable transformation to a circular economy in the clothing and textile industry. 

CuRe Technology is textile-to-textile recycler that has developed a unique process of converting polyester-rich textile waste into rPET pellets that can replace petroleum derived virgin polyester.

 Matoha specialises in automated sorting solutions through near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. Their handheld technology enables the accurate identification and sorting of materials, contributing to better diversion of textile waste feedstock to the recycling industry. 

Syre is a textile impact company on a mission to reduce waste in the textile industry through textile-to-textile recycling, starting with polyester. The company’s textile-to-textile recycling technology provides circular polyester with quality on par with virgin polyester.

The Excess Materials Exchange (EME) is a digital, facilitated marketplace where companies can exchange excess materials and products, finding new high-quality reuse options. EME uses AI to exchange data via blockchain to identify the potential added value of the material or product and finds reuse options based on the financial, environmental and social value thus aiding benefits in these areas. 

Circular Systems – Texloop (US) founded in 2017, develop waste-to-fibre technologies focused on transforming waste into fibre, yarn, and textile fabrics for the fashion industry, such as a cottonised fibre made to run in existing, open-end and ring spinning systems and made from oilseed and hemp residues, creating a circular economy and reducing reliance on virgin resources.

BlockTexx is a textile-to-textile recycler that has developed the technology S.O.F.T.™ (which stands for ‘separation of fibre technology’) that combines chemical recovery technology and advanced manufacturing to produce recycled materials (rPET pellets and cellulose powder) from textile waste. 

Infinited Fiber Company is a textile-to-textile recycler that has developed a technology that can turn cotton-rich textile waste into a cellulose carbamate fibre (InfinnaTM). This next generation process can divert waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill or incineration, and regenerate it into a new fibre for the textile industry.

Evrnu converts textile waste materials into ‘new’ engineered fibers, which can be recycled again and again. Cotton-rich waste from the manufacturing process and discarded consumer fashion items is used to make Nucycl® lyocell fiber. 

Cadel Recycling Lab removes printed ink and labels from plastics and through mechanical recycling can produce high quality, high recycled-content pellets. These pellets are waste based with no toxic chemicals, and have lower carbon when compared to virgin plastic. 

Reverse Resources is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that enables the fashion industry to collaborate on moving textile waste to recycling and close the loop of its own raw materials. It offers a single point of access for sourcing and supply chain set up of textile waste for the textile-to-textile recycling sector, enabling mapping and measuring volumes of waste by type, composition and location enabling waste suppliers to provide high quality waste for recyclers.

PurFi rejuvenates pre-consumer textile waste back to virgin quality fibres virgin quality products from corporate waste streams to create a closed loop solution. The technology can process cotton, PET, cotton/poly blends as well as separate out elastane. 

 Cocoon Biotech has developed a bio-technology platform designed to produce a bio-compatible silk protein from raw cocoon silk, post-consumer silk waste and supply chain waste. This gives a possible circualr recycling route for silk textiles thus reducing demand for virgin resources.

Ambercycle is a textile-to-textile recycler that converts polyester textile waste into cycora yarns® (a regenerated alternative to virgin  polyester) for apparel brands and manufacturers. Their process uses polyester textile waste as feedstock, which is then purified and further converted into polyester pellets to make the cycora yarn, out of which new clothes can be made – thus reducing demand for virgin materials. 

Circulose is a textile-to-textile recycler which processes cotton-based textile waste into new Circulose dissolving pulp. Dissolving pulp is the raw material used to produce viscose and lyocell fibres for the textile industry, which means Circulose’s material can be used in downstream textile supply chain to be processed into textile-grade fibres. 

Circ is a textile-to-textile chemical recycler with the ability to recycle different types of textile waste (polyester-based, cellulosic-based and blended). In doing so, Circ produces virgin-equivalent outputs (like dissolving pulp for lyocell fibre production and polyester monomers for PET production) that can be sold downstream to produce new recycled materials.

Worn Again uses a solvent-based technology that can recover PET and cellulose from pure and blended poly-cotton fibres, with the resulting PET material free from dyes and other contaminants and restored to virgin equivalent quality/specification.

RESCOLL offers a thermal-debondable separation technique for different applications in the fashion industry. They use debondable adhesives and primers that provide strong bonding during the use-phase; however, once thermally activated, they allow for easy separation – enabling further reuse and recycling of material components. 

PICVISA is an innovative technology based company that designs, manufactures and supplies optical sorting and separation equipment to recover and grade textiles and can be fully customised to the clients needs, by its composition and colour. They add value by automating the entire process of sorting using Artificial Intelligence, conveyer belts and robotics to eliminate human error and delay.