Accelerating Circularity: towards the implementation of textile-to-textile recycling at commercial scale

The textile industry is currently adopting a linear system of take-make-waste, producing a huge amount of waste that is downcycled, sent to landfill, and incinerated. This linear model is responsible for undervaluing waste products that could be used as secondary raw materials and for having a negative environmental impact, such as greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution.

Accelerating Circularity aims to define a functioning, cost-effective circular textile supply chain, using textile waste as raw material and testing textile-to-textile recycling at a commercial scale. Accelerating Circularity produced a report titled "Putting Textiles to Good Use," which describes Accelerating Circularity's proposal to speed up the industry’s transition to a circular model and to scale textile-to-textile systems. The report identifies three key impacts of the transition from a linear to a circular system:

1. Environmental: recycled textiles lower GHG and water impacts.

2. Social: "nearshoring" manufacturing and used textile recycling processing can create jobs in consuming countries.

3. Economic: waste textiles used as rfeedstock can generate revenues. Mechanically and chemically, rFibre has prices similar to virgin materials.

Accelerating Circularity is building knowledge and mapping stakeholders to create a new circular supply chain and implement textile-to-textile recycling at a commercial scale, outlining missing links. Moreover, a targeted outcome of the trials for commercial textile-to-textile products is to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits for each member of the system.