CREATING A CIRCULAR SYSTEM FOR POST-CONSUMER TEXTILE WASTE

Textile Recycling Excellence (T-REX) was a research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme from 2022-2025. 12 partners from across the value chain collaborated towards demonstrating a potential scalable solution for textile-to-textile recycling. This involved the collection and sorting of household textile waste to demonstrate the full recycling process of polyester, polyamide 6 and cotton from waste into new textiles or garments.

The aim of the project was to demonstrate sustainable and economically feasible business models for each actor along the value chain, to conduct lifecycle analysis of the circular process, to facilitate citizen engagement activities, to integrate digital tools that streamline the process of closed loop textile recycling and to produce circular design guidelines.

Project CONTRIBUTORS

Waste management company Veolia led the post-consumer textile waste collection, sorting and division, managing the feedstock needs of the respective textile recycling technologies of Infinited Fiber Company,  BASF, and CuRe. The recycled fibres were converted into yarn by manufacturers Fulgar, Indorama Ventures and Linz Textil, from which adidas created demonstration products with recycling capacity in mind. FAU supported the project with analytical expertise and Aalto University conducted citizens’ engagement activities to raise awareness of textile recycling practices and analyse social impact. Fashion for Good led industry communications and conducted business viability and digital integration activities, supported by Quantis and Arapaha who collected and analysed data from across the value chain for sustainability assessments and digital solution recommendations.

this site

This site has been created to share learnings from the project according to two different audience types: Consumers and Companies/NGOs. Please select the version that best suits your perspective and needs: