A new study entitled “The Textile Recycling Breakthrough” has analyzed the textile-to-textile polyester recycling in Europe and identified ten key factors to enable exponential growth of polyester recycling in Europe. It also quantifies the cost gap between chemically recycled and new polyester, outlines political and investment solutions and shows how Europe can reduce depolymerization by 2035 almost tenfolds and thus drop and emissions.
The multi-stakeholder study is headed by the system change company SystemiQ and supported by the Canadian outdoor brand Arc’Teryx, the Italian material innovation company Eastman, the Italian environmental service provider Interzero, the textile Exchange and the Norwegian recycling company Tomra.
It is based on economic models, system analyzes, real financial data and insights from 17 organizations along the value chain, including brands such as Lululemon and Patagonia, organizations such as the Ellen Macarthur Foundation and Fashion for Good, Recycling, Civil Society and Infrastructure.
“The scaling of the textile-to-textile recycling is both possible and urgently-but it will not take place without courageous political support. This report is an urgently needed blueprint to open up the ecological and economic advantages of polyester recycling in Europe,” comments Karla Magruder, founder of Accelerating Circularity, in a press.
The main point of the study is that advanced textile recycling technologies have developed significantly in recent years, but have not yet been widespread. Depolymerization procedures in particular are seen as a promising solution if you look at the growing amounts of polyester textile waste in Europe and if reuse or mechanical recycling are not possible.
“These depolymerization technologies are both ecologically attractive and technically able to produce new materials, with the potential to significantly reduce the negative consequences of the growing textile waste and to lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to the production of new polyester. Despite their attractiveness, however, depolymerization is still not broad,” emphasizes the study.
A lack of economy and accessibility hinder scalability
In order to achieve a turning point for mass acceptance, i.e. if the recycling of polyester waste through depolymerization becomes more competitive than the production of new polyester from fossil fuels, two other conditions must be met: economy and accessibility.
“The economy remains the biggest hurdle: the production of recycled polyester from old textiles in Europe costs about 2.6 times more than the average costs for new polyester in Asia,” said the study.
Access to textile waste (in the quality and quantity required for a large-scale recycling) is a challenge on the offer page. On the demand side, the higher price for textile-to-textile recycling polyester leads to most brands to continue to prefer cheaper polyester or recycling polyester from PET beverage bottles.
“Without targeted political measures that improve both economy and accessibility, depolymerization will get stuck in the pilot stage, and the breakthrough to mass acceptance will not take place,” warns the study.
In view of the globally growing mountains of textiles and the falling quality of the textiles, this is indeed worrying.
Politics and industry have to remedy the situation
The study has identified ten levers in four areas: cost gap, access to raw materials, production costs and acceptance agency to achieve a turning point for mass acceptance.
With regard to improved access to raw materials, it supports the implementation of recycling designs, the establishment of comprehensive separate textile collections as well as the determination of standards for sorting recycled textiles and creating clarity in retail.
The second area, the acceptance guarantee, could be strengthened by creating political incentives and ensuring brand and supply chain obligations.
Production costs would decrease considerably if energy prices in the EU decrease and investments were less risky.
With regard to the cost gap, the study recommends that the net costs with an ambitious system of extended manufacturer responsibility (EPR) fully cover. Internalization of the freight costs would also help.
“Based on our system assumptions and the available data, an EPR fee of around 250 euros per tonne would be required by 2035 to 330 euros per ton by 2035 to cover the net costs for collecting, sorting and recycling. This is a guideline and will be different depending on the member state. This would lead to a total cost of 385 euros per tonne.
With the levers mentioned above, the production of recycling polyester could be competitive with the production of new polyester from fossil raw materials by textile-to-textile recycling. “The European production of recycling polyester from depolymerization could be increased from around 30,000 tons before 2028 to 300,000 tons a year to 2035 – an almost renunciation. This would correspond to a share of around 15 percent of the polyester textiles used in Europe and demonstrate exponential growth, as can also be observed in other groundbreaking technologies”, ” summarizes the study.
“Europe has the option of giving the transition to circular textiles, and technologies such as depolymerization are ready to play a central role. What is now needed are the correct and demanding political framework, long -term acceptance obligations and mechanisms for risk reduction in order to implement these solutions on a large scale,” commented Eric Dehex, Managing Director of Eastman Circular Solutions.
The complete study can be downloaded from Systemiq.Earth.