Textiles

The trinamiX GmbH is expanding its portfolio for the circular economy. New applications of mobile near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy enable the identification of materials used in the footwear and textile industries. The solution supports manufacturers, sorters, recyclers and brand owners in reliably identifying materials and improving transparency across increasingly complex value chains.

Axens, IFPEN and JEPLAN have completed a semi-industrial demonstration of a polyester textile recycling loop, processing post-consumer waste into base monomers for new production.

Fashion for Good has launched Project FAE (Feedstock Activation Europe) to develop sorting and pre-processing infrastructure for post-consumer textile feedstock. The initiative aims to enable the supply of non-rewearable textiles to textile-to-textile recycling at industrial scale.

Specim, part of Konica Minolta, has introduced Specim RETEX, a hyperspectral textile recognition solution designed for material identification and automated separation in textile processing and recycling.

Landbell USA has been selected by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) as the Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) for the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (SB 707).

Picvisa and Girbau have entered into a strategic collaboration to advance the automation of post-consumer textile sorting. As part of this cooperation, the companies are commissioning a new plant in Northern Europe that combines automated feeding and optical sorting technologies in a continuous process for the treatment of used textiles.

Fashion for Good has launched Stretching Circularity, a collaborative project aimed at accelerating the adoption of bio-based and recycled elastane compatible with circular textile systems. The initiative focuses on validating lower-impact elastane alternatives through pilot-scale testing and demonstrator garments in order to address technical barriers to fibre-to-fibre recycling.

Textiles have not yet been part of a functioning circular economy, either in Switzerland or internationally. In particular, the reuse of fibres as a raw material for new textiles is associated with technical, organisational and economic challenges.

Recycling garments made from multiple fibre types has long posed a technical challenge for the textile industry. Without processes to separate and recover individual materials, such products have typically been sent for incineration or landfill.

Hosokawa Alpine has developed a new solution for the sustainable recycling of textile waste.