Today, 20 million tonnes of textiles are being landfilled or incinerated annually in the EU and US alone and an estimated 95% of all these textiles, could be re-worn or recycled.
How can we curb virgin fibre production and utilise textile waste?
We need to transition to a circular textiles industry.
High value or textile-to-textile recycling enables leftover textile fabrics or garments that are no longer in use to be redirected back into the textiles loop as recycled raw materials, to create circular fashion. Leveraging untapped ‘waste’ streams to create new textiles on a large scale would enable the textiles industry to drastically cut down it's need for virgin textile resources and significantly reduce the negative impacts associated with virgin cotton fibre production and textile waste.
In 2016 Circle Economy joined forces with our members Recover, ReBlend, G-Star and ReShare to test and prove the true potential of high-value recycling.