While textile recycling technology has advanced quickly in recent years, Fashion for Good argues that many projects still struggle to secure the right quality and quantity of raw input—especially when dealing with mixed materials, stretch fibres and contamination common in used clothing. Project FAE focuses on making post-consumer waste practical and cost-effective to process, so recyclers can use it as a commercially viable raw material rather than a problematic, inconsistent stream.

The programme has two main workstreams. The first is a technical review of advanced pre-processing methods that can prepare waste textiles for recycling at industrial scale. Fashion for Good said it will assess how close these approaches are to deployment, including techniques for separating fibre blends, removing elastane, and extracting contaminants. The goal is to determine which technologies can be implemented immediately and which still need development or scale-up.

The second workstream is structural: designing a blueprint for a network of regional hubs across Europe. These hubs would aggregate post-consumer textiles, apply automated sorting and mechanical pre-processing, and then output feedstock streams tailored to specific recycler requirements. By centralising processes and using automation, the model aims to reduce costs while improving consistency and quality—two factors that determine whether textile-to-textile recycling feedstock can be secured at volume.

Project FAE brings together a wide coalition spanning sorting, recycling and ecosystem support. Sorting and collection organisations participating include Boer Group, Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems, Erdotex, Formació i Treball, Humana People to People, Kringwinkel Antwerpen, New Retex, Nouvelles Fibres Textiles, Plaxtil-Essaimons, Sympany, Texaid and Texlimca. On the recycling side, contributors include Circ, Circulose, CuRe Technology, eeden, Infinited Fiber Company, Kipas (fibR-e), Matterr, Meltem Kimya, Recover, Reju, OnceMore (Södra) and WornAgain, representing multiple technology pathways and end-market formats.

Supporting organisations include InvestNL, Landbell Group, Refashion, Reverse Resources, TEXroad, Wargon Innovation, WRAP, ZDHC and the Global Fashion Agenda, signalling an intention to align the programme with existing European policy and industry initiatives.

Fashion for Good said it wants FAE to deliver more than technical recommendations. The goal is a viable commercial structure that can be adopted by industry—helping establish a functioning post-consumer textile value chain in Europe that can reliably serve recycling plants at scale.

Fashion for Good managing director Katrin Ley said: “We have been talking about textile circularity for years, and the honest truth is that the technology is no longer the bottleneck. What is holding us back is much more unglamorous: the sorting lines, the pre-processing steps, the supply systems that need to exist before a single fibre can be recycled.

“Project FAE is our attempt to tackle that unglamorous, necessary work head-on – together with the brands, sorters and recyclers who know this problem better than anyone. If we get this right, we unlock something the industry has been trying to reach for a long time.”

Under the agreement, the two companies will jointly develop and fine-tune processes intended to support large-scale recycling of polyester textiles. Their near-term objective is to reach multi-tonne output of recycled polyester by late 2026—material that will be used for spinning trials, validation runs and sample development with multiple brands.

Syre CEO Dennis Nobelius said the collaboration is designed to move quickly while maintaining performance standards. “This partnership is all about speed and scale, without compromising on quality. Through Jeplan’s technical and operational experience built over more than a decade, we can move much faster to commercialisation.”

Jeplan CEO Masaki Takao said the partnership combines Syre’s scale ambitions with Jeplan’s experience operating chemical recycling infrastructure. “We are excited to partner with Syre to help bring textile-to-textile recycling to meaningful scale. Syre’s ambition, business back bone, and global reach in technology integration, combined with our extensive chemical recycling experience creates a powerful platform for accelerating breakthrough solutions for the textile industry.”

Jeplan operates a PET chemical recycling facility for textiles in Kitakyushu, Japan, which includes demonstration and semi-industrial units focused on testing and scaling new recycling methods. Syre, meanwhile, is building out large-scale systems to reduce textile waste and lower emissions, with polyester positioned as its initial focus due to the fibre’s dominant share of global textile production.

By tapping Jeplan’s existing operations and chemical recycling capabilities, Syre aims to shorten the path from development work to commercial deployment—an area where many circular textile technologies have struggled to move beyond pilot scale. The partnership is also intended to support the consistent quality needed for brands to adopt recycled inputs across product lines, particularly as regulatory and customer expectations tighten.

Syre indicated the Jeplan agreement is part of a wider partner-led scale-up strategy. Nobelius said further collaborations are expected as the company pushes toward industrial rollout. “We are proud to announce Jeplan today, and more will follow. We expect to announce several additional world-leading partnerships around the globe as we move toward full commercial deployment.”

If the late-2026 multi-tonne target is met, the two companies could provide a tangible proof point that textile-to-textile polyester recycling can move from controlled demonstrations into repeatable, brand-ready supply at meaningful volume.

Sulzer said it will contribute technical and engineering expertise to support Spinnova’s ongoing development work. The company is known for providing equipment and solutions used in critical industrial processes, and positions its technologies around improving energy efficiency, strengthening resource management and reducing emissions—capabilities that align with circular-economy goals increasingly shaping the textiles sector.

Spinnova and Sulzer have collaborated before, notably through the Woodspin demonstration factory project, where Sulzer supported the effort from early planning through to production ramp-up. Sulzer has also been involved in scaling the piloting environment for microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) production, a key input area linked to Spinnova’s fibre pathway. Both companies described the earlier cooperation as more than a supplier relationship, involving close co-development alongside machinery delivery and technical support.

The latest agreement effectively positions Sulzer as a longer-term technology partner as Spinnova continues refining how its process can be industrialised. Spinnova’s ecosystem model is designed to speed up scaling by bringing in partners across the value chain, from process engineering through to market-facing applications. Within that structure, Sulzer’s role includes supporting initiatives aimed at improving cost competitiveness—an essential factor for any next-generation fibre trying to compete at volume.

“Co-development with Sulzer strengthens our offering to scale up Spinnova’s technology. By combining Sulzer’s technology and engineering expertise in pumping, mixing, and fibre suspension flows with our technology concept, we can industrialise more effectively. This partnership strengthens the entire process from planning to implementation, improving the concept competitiveness at large scale”, says Mikko Kautto, responsible of Technology Concept and Partners at Spinnova.

“Sulzer is committed to supporting companies that push the boundaries of innovation like Spinnova. By providing reliable technology and engineering expertise, we are pleased to help our partners strengthen their processes and advance their ambitions”, says Sirpa Välimaa, Head of Business Segment, Pulp, Paper, and Board at Sulzer.

For Spinnova, adding industrial process expertise is positioned as a practical lever to advance SPINNOVA fibre scale-up—moving from demonstration and piloting into repeatable industrial execution. For Sulzer, the partnership extends its footprint in circular materials, applying core competencies in flow handling and process performance to a fibre technology aiming to reach mainstream textile adoption.

ABB has signed a memorandum of understanding with Swedish textile recycler Syre to evaluate how industrial automation, electrification and digital systems could support Syre’s first large-scale polyester recycling facility, planned for Vietnam. The collaboration will focus on adapting ABB’s process-industry technologies to the specific operational demands of textile-to-textile polyester recycling, with the goal of enabling a plant that can run safely, efficiently and at scale.

The partners said the exploratory work will run in parallel with the detailed engineering phase for Syre’s proposed site in Gia Lai province. The facility is intended to convert polyester sourced from used textiles and industrial waste into new recycled polyester feedstock, helping reduce reliance on virgin, fossil-based fibre inputs. Construction is expected to start in 2027.

Syre is positioning its Vietnam project as part of a broader push to industrialise circular polyester, arguing that polyester’s dominance in global fibre consumption makes it a high-impact target for decarbonisation and circularity efforts. The company says scaling textile-to-textile routes can lower emissions, reduce dependence on virgin petrochemical inputs and keep materials in circulation as brands and manufacturers work to build more circular value chains.

“This agreement reflects ABB’s role in supporting emerging industrial applications where automation and electrification can enable greater resource efficiency,” said Wilson Monteiro, global business line manager for pulp, paper and fibre in ABB’s Process Industries division.

“Together with Syre, we will explore how our experience in fibre processing, chemicals and advanced process industries can be applied to polyester recycling. We’re excited to discover what’s possible as we embark on this new technological collaboration.”

Syre CEO Dennis Nobelius said the move toward industrial scale makes partnerships with established industrial suppliers increasingly important. “As we now move into full industrial deployment, partnerships like this become critical. Industrialising textile-to-textile recycling is a complex undertaking, and while strong customer demand is essential, it must be matched with best-in-class industrial partners.

“ABB brings exactly the depth of expertise and execution capability needed; they are a cornerstone of the industrial ecosystem we are building.”

Syre has scaled quickly since its public launch two years ago, establishing an R&D facility and pilot line in Mebane, North Carolina, and progressing to multi-tonne production of circular PET chips in 2025. While ABB and Syre emphasised the MoU is exploratory, it signals how industrial automation and digitalisation are becoming central to translating textile-to-textile polyester recycling from pilot lines into repeatable, bankable industrial plants—particularly in regions positioned to play a larger role in circular manufacturing supply chains.

Reju said the Chemelot site will process used textiles that might otherwise be landfilled or incinerated, converting them into “Reju Polyester.” The company claims the output delivers 50% lower carbon emissions than virgin polyester while also capturing residual fractions that typically fall out of conventional recycling streams. By scaling textile-to-textile regeneration, the project aims to reduce the environmental burden of textile waste and increase the availability of circular raw materials that can displace fossil-based fibres.

“We are grateful to the Government of the Netherlands and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate for supporting the scale-up of commercial technologies that can deliver measurable emissions reductions and accelerate the transition to a truly circular textile industry,” commented Patrik Frisk, CEO of Reju.

“This award is a strong vote of confidence in our technology and our team. At Chemelot, we will deliver circular raw materials at scale, reduce emissions across textile value chains, and establish a replicable blueprint for circular textiles in Europe.”

The Chemelot Industrial Park location was selected for its established industrial ecosystem, including shared utilities and logistics infrastructure—factors that can reduce project execution risk and support reliable input and output flows. Reju also said the project is intended to enable fully traceable circular supply chains, strengthening verification and improving the displacement of virgin fibres.

The Dutch award comes as Reju is scaling across multiple geographies. The company recently announced plans for a new circular textile hub in Lacq, France, which will use its proprietary depolymerisation process to convert textiles sourced from French waste streams into rBHET—an intermediate used to produce new polyester, branded by the company as Reju PET.

Reju has also set out plans for its first US industrial facility in Rochester, New York, intended to complement its existing demonstration operations. The company’s demo plant, Regeneration Hub Zero, is already running in Frankfurt, giving it an operational base as it moves from demonstration to industrial deployment.

With the NIKI funding, Reju’s Chemelot development signals another step toward scaling textile-to-textile regeneration from early plants into larger, repeatable hubs—an approach the company says could be replicated across Europe to support circular materials at meaningful volume.

Under the EU framework, DPPs are expected to provide scannable evidence of product origin and environmental footprint, allowing regulators, brands and consumers to access key supply-chain and impact data at item level. NAFFIC and AWARE said their pilot is the first time a DPP has been produced that captures end-to-end production in China while meeting the structure and transparency expectations emerging in Europe.

The first product covered is a recycled polyester textile with a fully mapped chain of custody. The passport traces the journey from post-consumer plastic bottles collected in China and processed into flakes, through yarn spinning by Jiangsu Reborn Eco-Tech, fabric weaving by Wujiang City Chaodai Textiles, and garment manufacturing by Suzhou Qiandai Life Technology Development. The finished product was made for European brand Iqoniq.

According to the partners, every step is logged on a public blockchain, enabling independent verification. Consumers, brands and regulators can access the record simply by scanning a QR code, which links to the supply-chain history and supporting documentation. The aim is to address a longstanding gap in textile traceability: the distance between claims made downstream and the data created upstream on factory floors.

The system integrates NAFFIC’s Sustainable Textiles Credible Platform (STCP) with AWARE’s feedstock-level verification tools, including Feedstock Source Declarations and Transaction Certificates. AWARE said it generates unique data tokens anchored to blockchain for each production batch, creating a Material DPP that can follow the product through each stage of transformation.

As the material moves from spinner to weaver to garment maker, the platform automatically records transactions and generates a “Crypto TC” and a traceability record, intended to provide a tamper-resistant log of custody and conversion. NAFFIC and AWARE frame this as essential for a scalable China-EU Digital Product Passport approach, because it reduces the reliance on manual document collection and after-the-fact auditing.

AWARE founder Feico van der Veen said the shift should be understood as a global supply-chain reset, not a regional compliance exercise. “This is not just a European regulation. It is a transformation of global supply chains — and it starts here in China,” explained van der Veen. “For the first time, Chinese producers can give brands what they need most: irrefutable, blockchain-verified proof of what went into their product and where it came from.

“The data does not exist in brand head offices. It is created in factories. We can make that data tradable.”

Beyond traceability, the passport also includes an impact component. The partners said DPP users can view an Impact Report that calculates the product’s carbon footprint using verified production data, rather than averages or industry proxies. The structure can also generate country-specific customs reporting, suggesting a pathway where DPP infrastructure supports both sustainability compliance and cross-border trade documentation.

With EU rules approaching, the project signals how Chinese suppliers and technology providers are starting to align data practices with European expectations—while also testing whether blockchain-based records can deliver the credibility, interoperability and scale that the DPP model will demand.

A prime example: Under the policy, a garment unit with an investment of US$ 10 million and employment generation of around 3,000 persons may be eligible for total incentives of up to US$ 20 million, subject to applicable eligibility conditions. The incentives include capital subsidies, employment-linked assistance and operational support measures.

These cutting-edge textile and readymade garment parks in Nava Raipur span plots from 0.3 to 10 acres, delivering seamless plug-and-play setups. Facilities boast uninterrupted power, water, effluent treatment plants, and advanced waste systems, all engineered for round-the-clock production—including safe night shifts for women, complete with on-site worker accommodations.

Strategically placed along the Mumbai-Howrah rail line and just 500 km from Visakhapatnam Port, the parks ensure swift access to India’s vast domestic market and export gateways. Raipur’s international airport links to key cities in under two hours, slashing logistics hurdles.

“Our approach minimizes investor roadblocks by blending ready-to-go infrastructure with robust financial perks,” noted Rajat Kumar, Secretary at Chhattisgarh’s Commerce & Industries Department. “These Nava Raipur hubs empower rapid expansion and streamlined efficiency right from launch.”

The policy excels in employee-centric perks, including ongoing monthly support tailored for women and men, generous training allowances, capital subsidies, complete electricity duty exemptions for over a decade, and freight assistance.

Building on India’s rich textile legacy, Chhattisgarh churns out over 200 metric tonnes of Tussar silk yearly, with its famed Champa silk earning a GI tag. The state’s Right to Skill Act bolsters a skilled workforce, drawing from 50,000 annual graduates via NIFT, IIT, and IIM, amid a demographic where nearly 60% are working-age.

Major firms like Swift Merchandise and Punit Creation are set to pump in investments, projecting over 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, fueling India’s textile resurgence.

For more information, visit www.invest.cg.gov.in

Europe’s textile waste is rising faster than the region’s ability to capture, sort and recycle it, leaving circularity ambitions constrained by basic system capacity. That is the central warning from Boston Consulting Group’s new report, Advancing Textile Circularity in Europe: The Case for System-Level Scale-Up, which argues that a fragmented collection and sorting ecosystem is limiting the feedstock available for high-quality recycling—especially textile-to-textile routes.

BCG estimates Europe generated about 15.2 million tonnes of textile waste in 2025, driven overwhelmingly by post-consumer volumes. Of the 13.3 million tonnes coming from households and businesses after use, only around 1.5 million tonnes is currently collected and sorted—roughly one tonne in nine of the post-consumer stream. With collection around 33% and sorting around 36%, the report says the “addressable base” for scaling textile to textile recycling remains small and concentrated.

The waste surge is closely tied to consumption patterns. BCG points to structural demand growth of about 4% per year since 2020, amplified by fast fashion, which it projects will expand at roughly 11% annually between 2025 and 2035. The result is accelerating churn: EU consumers buy about 95 textile pieces per year, up 12% versus 2019, as product lifetimes compress and more clothing reaches end-of-life.

Regulation is tightening across the value chain, but BCG argues policy momentum must now translate into operational build-out. From 2025, mandatory separate textile collection and the rollout of textile extended producer responsibility (EPR) are expected to improve funding and accountability. At the same time, export restrictions on unsorted textile waste and bans on destroying unsold textiles will reduce the system’s traditional “escape valves,” increasing pressure to develop domestic treatment capacity.

BCG models what it would take to lift textile-to-textile volumes from below 1% today to around 15% by 2035. That step-change would require collection via dedicated channels to rise to about 50% by 2035 and sorting to reach roughly 63%, supported by pre-processing that produces recycling-ready feedstock. On the back end, Europe would need capacity to process about 2.7 million tonnes into new textile fibres.

The investment requirement is substantial: BCG estimates incremental CAPEX of €8–11 billion and recurring OPEX of €5–6.5 billion per year by 2035. Under baseline assumptions, profitability is unattractive for several links in the chain—especially recyclers—meaning enabling mechanisms will be needed to make textile to textile recycling investable at scale. These could include CAPEX grants, eco-modulated EPR fees that reflect true end-of-life costs, recycled-content requirements, and risk-sharing tools such as offtake agreements and standards.

The initiative, called the Switch to Upstream Circularity Pilot, ran under the wider SWITCH to Circular Economy Value Chains (SWITCH2CE) programme. It began in January 2023 with seven suppliers and expanded steadily as the operating model proved workable on factory floors. By November 2025, participation had grown to 20 factories, reflecting increased confidence among suppliers in the business case for segregation, traceability and structured waste handling.

One of the clearest outcomes was volume. Segregated textile waste rose from just over 129 tonnes at baseline to more than 16,000 tonnes by the end of the pilot—an increase that signals not only improved sorting discipline but also stronger links between factories and downstream processors that can actually use the separated material.

The project also focused heavily on training and ecosystem-building to make changes stick. Knowledge sharing scaled through 16 workshops and roundtables, eight presentations at events and 21 targeted training sessions that reached close to 5,000 fashion stakeholders. As those programmes progressed, the local network around waste expanded markedly: the number of waste handlers involved increased from two to 27, while recycler participation grew from two to 26. The result, organisers said, was a more coordinated operating environment in which manufacturers, handlers and recyclers were better aligned on what materials were available and how they could be processed.

Operational changes inside factories followed. After training, 14 of 16 manufacturers established dedicated segregation zones, creating clearer pathways for keeping waste streams separate rather than mixing materials that later become difficult—or uneconomic—to recycle. Manufacturers also upgraded their recording practices, tracking up to 20 fibre composition categories by the end of the project. That level of detail improved matching between waste inputs and the right recycling processes, and encouraged nine manufacturers to create new technical roles focused on recycling operations and data management.

The pilot also tested the pathway from waste sorting to new product. Commercial trials were launched between Bestseller’s manufacturers and recycler CYCLO to develop garments containing recycled materials. Eight manufacturers said they increased their use of recycled inputs compared with virgin fibres following the trials, suggesting that improved feedstock quality and traceability can help move recycling from a concept to a repeatable sourcing option.

Importantly, the work also delivered measurable financial signals. End-of-pilot surveys found that seven manufacturers reported direct gains from selling segregated waste at higher prices. Across all participating stakeholders, the estimated economic value generated reached around €1.07m (about $1.2m), based on market pricing for selected fibre compositions.

BESTSELLER Recycling & Innovation material manager Alexander Granberg said: “We have gained significant learnings over the past years and developed a much better understanding of the waste structures in Bangladesh. Through this project, we have demonstrated that, together with our manufacturers, it is possible to achieve the segregation and transparency needed to drive material recovery. This represents a first and important stepping stone in further building the recycling capacity in the country.”

Implementation support came from UNIDO under SWITCH2CE, alongside Global Fashion Agenda, BGMEA and Reverse Resources. The programme is part of a broader international collaboration that includes Circle Economy, the European Investment Bank and Chatham House, and is funded by the European Union and Finland.

UNIDO SWITCH2CE chief technical adviser Mark Draeck said: “Through this pilot, UNIDO worked with a global brand and local suppliers to demonstrate how circular economy innovations can strengthen the competitiveness of Bangladesh’s textile industry.

“The project revealed a strong supplier appetite for improved waste segregation, transparency, and traceability—critical enablers of a circular transition. These insights are now feeding directly into tailored policy advice to help address institutional barriers and scale effective circular solutions at the national level.”

For Bangladesh, the implication is that circularity efforts are most likely to scale when they are built on practical factory systems—segregation space, consistent categorisation and credible data—rather than relying on downstream fixes alone. The pilot suggests that Bangladesh textile waste segregation, when paired with local processing capacity and traceable pathways to recyclers, can strengthen manufacturing resilience while accelerating the country’s broader recycling ambitions.

The first shock arrives through energy. Synthetic fibres are, at their core, petrochemical products. When crude oil becomes volatile, textiles feel it quickly through feedstocks such as purified terephthalic acid and monoethylene glycol, the building blocks for polyester and PET-based materials. Even when fibre prices do not move in perfect lockstep with crude, the direction of travel matters because it changes buyer behaviour. Apparel brands working on thin margins tend to delay orders, renegotiate, or switch blends when input costs climb. Technical buyers, by contrast, are often purchasing to specification for protective performance, industrial processes or infrastructure projects, where substitution is harder and compliance timelines are less forgiving. That difference alone helps explain why the technical textiles boom can accelerate even as parts of conventional apparel trade slow.

Logistics risk amplifies the divide. Disruption across the Red Sea corridor and wider Middle East has forced vessels to reroute, adding time at sea, tightening effective capacity and pushing up freight and insurance costs. For commodity apparel, where speed-to-market and price competitiveness are paramount, that is a direct hit to profitability. For technical textiles, extended transit can still be painful, but demand is frequently anchored in longer-term supply contracts, replenishment planning, and mission-critical uses. In a world where reliability is priced in, specialised textiles gain an edge.

At the demand end, the drivers are becoming clearer. Defence and security procurement has become a powerful tailwind, pulling through ballistic and stab-resistant materials, flame-resistant fabrics, chemical protective suits, and advanced composites. Industrial safety programmes and stricter workplace standards add another layer of demand for high-performance protective textiles. Meanwhile, infrastructure spending—roads, rail, ports, flood control and coastal protection—continues to broaden the market for geotextiles and geomembranes, products that rarely enter mainstream consumer awareness but are indispensable for soil stabilisation and civil engineering.

Filtration is another underappreciated engine of growth. Whether driven by water scarcity, industrial air-quality requirements, or more stringent emissions controls, filtration media demand has remained resilient. Nonwovens, engineered membranes and specialty fibre structures sit at the heart of that market, and they benefit from the same war-economy logic: governments and industries rarely treat filtration as optional when it is tied to public health, factory uptime or regulatory compliance. As this segment scales, it contributes to the technical textiles boom in a way that is structurally different from fashion-led growth.

Regulation is also nudging the market toward technical solutions. Europe’s growing focus on PFAS in textiles illustrates why. The European Environment Agency has described PFAS as persistent chemicals that can hinder reuse and recycling and pose environmental and health concerns, noting the difficulty of tracking PFAS content across global supply chains and end-of-life systems. This matters because PFAS chemistry has historically delivered durable water and oil repellency across apparel and technical applications. As restrictions tighten and transparency expectations rise, the industry is being forced to innovate—developing PFAS-free barrier technologies, redesigning finishes, and creating new material architectures that deliver performance with a more future-proof chemical profile. In effect, compliance is becoming an innovation trigger, supporting the technical textiles boom by rewarding suppliers that can combine performance with chemical credibility.

The result is a rebalancing of what “good business” looks like in textiles. Volume apparel remains enormous, but it is more exposed to consumer sentiment, discounting cycles and freight shocks. Technical textiles are not immune to macro pressure, yet their demand is more closely tied to structural needs: defence readiness, industrial production, infrastructure resilience and environmental regulation. That makes them attractive not only for manufacturers looking to protect margins, but also for governments seeking domestic capability in strategically important materials.

For textile producers and converters, the playbook is changing. Competing in technical textiles requires investment in testing, certification, traceability and process control. It demands closer collaboration with end users, engineers and regulators. It often means smaller runs, higher complexity and higher accountability. But it also offers something the apparel market rarely provides for long: pricing power rooted in performance.

The next phase of the technical textiles boom will likely be defined by two questions. First, can the industry scale responsibly, without replicating the opacity and waste that have plagued commodity fashion supply chains. Second, can innovators deliver high performance while navigating a tightening regulatory landscape, particularly around chemicals of concern. Companies that can answer both will not just ride the boom; they will shape the next era of the global textile economy.