The new consortium Cisutac wants to remove the obstacles European fashion companies and textile suppliers face on their way to a circular economy. Co-funded by the European Union and supported by 27 partners, the project aims to increase the capacity to reuse, repair and recycle end-of-life textiles using affordable means and methods.
“The European textile industry is already working on more sustainable fashion,” says project coordinator Charlotte Denis, “but there are still some obstacles that prevent the industry from using textiles more circularly.”
Quality, durability and recyclability are often not a priority in apparel production, even though the industry needs all three elements to meet the EU’s 2030 climate targets. The aim of the four-year Cisutac initiative, short for Circular and Sustainable Textile and Clothing, is to remove the current bottlenecks and develop new, circular and integrated European value chains on a large scale.
Launched last September, the project is led by Centexbel, a Belgian research center for textiles and plastics. Centexbel is responsible for the overall coordination of the project, developing the pilot projects and supporting the life cycle assessments, a method of measuring the environmental impact of a commercial product. The research platform Textile ETP is responsible for the exchange of information and results of the project.
Other partner organizations include clothing groups such as Decathlon, but also the textile association Euratex and fiber manufacturer Lenzing.
Preserve, recycle, reuse
Cisutac has initiated three pilot projects: The first aims to preserve the greatest value from existing items, especially for reuse. The second is about avoiding mistakes when sorting textiles for recycling, such as adding the wrong materials. The final pilot project aims to reduce the manual labor and required expertise of staff in sorting, disassembling and repairing. The scope of the pilot projects is broad and covers almost 90 percent of all textile fibers, including polyester and cotton, as well as the three areas of fashion, sports and outdoor, and workwear.
Recycling in the textile industry still faces many challenges before it can be used on a larger scale. The reasons for the current difficulties are manifold, including poorer fiber quality and the need to mix recycled components with new fibres. Most garments are made from a mixture of different fibers and are difficult to separate using current technologies. There is a lack of sorting capacity, as well as investment in research and machines.
First results at the end of 2023
The first results for the pilot projects are expected by the end of 2023, after which they are to be implemented in larger-scale prototypes. It is not to be expected that the developments will be adopted by industry within the next two years. The new technologies and best practices emerging from Cisutac should help the European textile industry in the long term.
“Cisutac will enable the industry to keep textiles in tighter local or regional loops and favor high quality products that are more durable, easier to repair and have a higher reuse or resale value,” says Charlotte Denis, Communications Officer at Textile ETP and coordinator of the Cisutac project.
Partnerships for more reach
It is no coincidence that Cisutac focuses on sorting and recycling used textiles. It is crucial for the textile industry to tackle this area, as the EU is forcing companies to take more responsibility for their products through stricter regulations.
The non-profit Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that less than 1 percent of textiles are currently recycled. A tremendous amount of discarded clothing ends up in landfills, often in developing countries. According to a February report by the European Environment Agency, exports of used textiles from the EU have tripled in the last 20 years. Improving recycling could benefit the environment by reducing the amount of waste and the resources to create new materials.
Denis says that initiatives like Cisutac can only have a significant impact on consumers and the industry if they receive sufficient incentives and support from the authorities. For this reason, organizations from society such as Texfor and Refashion ETP are involved in the project. The project’s partners also include fashion giants such as Inditex and PVH, which have a pan-European network that guarantees market reach in many countries.
According to Michael Kininmonth, business development manager at project partner Lenzing, similar initiatives have not gained enough momentum over the past five years because they were underfunded and because companies were working in silos. However, Cisutac has funding of almost 10 million euros. “The Cisutac consortium is EU-wide and includes all types of brands, organizations and EU associations, so it has the best chance of serving the needs of the sector to scale,” he says.
Cisutac is a non-competitive collaborative research project, meaning those involved have a financial incentive to work together. This situation is unique. Typically, brands and other organizations do not embark on experimental sustainability projects because of the high cost of research and development. In order to achieve a sustainable future for the fashion industry and the textile industry in general, it is very important to create free spaces outside the competitive structures and work towards common solutions for all.
Better repairs
Cisutac’s first phase is about improving the repair and disassembly of workwear and outdoor products such as backpacks and tents. Project partners will develop semi-automated stations with tools for repair and dismantling, where robots will help operate the machine. At the socio-economic level, repair and dismantling services are being tested in local reuse and repair workshops with the help of local authorities.
The augmented reality software will first determine important information about the items to be repaired or disassembled – such as brand, product category and materials. Based on this information, the instructions for the next tasks for the staff at the semi-automated stations are shown on an intelligent visor or display. Being a highly technical process with a learning curve, the project also includes customized training for staff.
The second life of a garment
The second phase of Cisutac aims to improve the sorting process for discarded clothing. Commercial apparel recycling company Texaid will lead this pilot project. Circular innovation center Wargön Innovation will develop a decision support to help staff decide whether a garment should be reused, repaired or recycled in order to preserve most of its value, using artificial intelligence and machine learning. These algorithms will use datasets to generate real-time recommendations to assist garment sorters in their assessments.
In preparation for recycling, Phase 2 will also look at ways to sort the same material into more precise streams and remove unwanted elements. Ideally, there would be four value streams: textiles for reuse, cellulose recycling, fiber-2-fiber recycling of polyester and cotton.
Based on the improved sorting methods from Pilot Project 2, the last phase is about the development of mechanisms to improve the recycling of pre- and post-consumer textile waste. Cisutac also looks for solutions for complex technical textile waste that consists of multiple materials and requires different sorting processes, such as backpacks and protective sportswear. The aim is to develop a new spinning technology for hybrid yarns based on processes currently used for PET bottles. Large fashion groups such as Inditex and PVH will support this phase of the project.
Laws and EU initiatives
Finally, Cisutac will also provide an overview of the status of textile waste collection and European sorting capacities to support future legislative processes. It uses existing circular economy transition scenarios, open data standards and circular economy policies.
Cisutac is one of a number of EU-funded initiatives designed to make the textile and fashion industry more sustainable. According to the European Commission, the consumption of textiles has the fourth largest impact on the environment and climate change. For this reason, the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles was launched by the European Union.
The strategy proposes a long list of actions for the entire life cycle of textile products – from the way textiles are designed and consumed to how they are reused. These include design requirements for textiles, digital product passports, tighter controls on greenwashing, extended producer responsibility and better waste management.
More on the circular economy and legislation in the EU: