The PET textile recycling industry can learn from the PET packaging recycling industry as it looks to scale up, with legislation and investment in collection and processing infrastructure key to increasing recycling rates, delegates at last week's Petcore Advancing Polyester Textile Circularity webinar heard.
Supportive EU legislation is imperative to increasing collection and recycling rates for PET textiles, which currently stand at 20pc and 7pc, respectively, delegates heard. Presenters called for mandatory recycled content as requirements for textiles to stimulate demand and suggested that a ban on exports of unsorted textiles from Europe would create a more stable market and keep the feedstock within Europe. And it was suggested that this should be combined with harmonised extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems to provide sufficient financial support to expand collection infrastructure.
And participants called for product design to better support the recycling industry. Transitioning to non-material fabrics rather than multilayer materials, and adopting digital marking for easy identification, could help streamline recycling processes, they said. Clear labelling regulations are also needed to ensure that materials can be easily sorted.
Effective processing
There is also need for development of systems to reprocess PET textile waste when collected, delegates heard.
Recycling textiles is more complex than recycling packaging owing to the variety of materials, surface treatments, dyes, coatings, and prints used in garments as well the potential presence of hazardous chemicals. Mechanical recycling is effective for simpler materials, but it is limited by the complexity of many textile feedstocks, which makes chemical recycling a necessary complementary process.
But depolymerisation-based chemical recycling — which is seen by proponents as a solution for tackling textile waste — is still in its early stages. The industry faces significant barriers to scaling up, including competition from low-cost imports, price sensitivity of consumers and brands, insufficient infrastructure, and high energy costs, particularly in Europe. Securing investment for industrial-scale depolymerisation projects remains a challenge. One large project has been shelved in Europe this year, while depolymerisation technology company Ioniqa filed for bankruptcy protection in October, citing low-cost virgin plastic alternatives, slow development of the plastic recycling supply chain and a lack of regulatory support, before announcing a comeback earlier this month.
Bruno Langlois from Carbios, which aims to commercialise an enzyme-based chemical recycling process for PET textile waste, noted that downstream buyers will need to be willing to pay a premium for recycled material to support the development of the industry. He estimated that the total cost of a PET depolymerisation process, from collection and sorting through to repolymerisation and spinning of the material, could be as much as €2,600/t ($2,714/t), even at industrial scale, although he added that these costs could decrease as supporting infrastructure improves. These costs would likely only add around €1 to the price of each garment, he said, although experience from the packaging industry suggests that such high premiums to virgin PET on a per-tonne basis are still likely to be difficult for some buyers to countenance.
Closing the loop
PET fibre accounts for 57pc of worldwide textile production, which is projected to grow from over 120mn t in 2023 to 160mn t by 2030, according to the Textile Exchange association. Currently, around 12pc of PET fibre contains recycled material, the highest recycled content seen in textiles. But most recycled polyester is derived from bottles and therefore downcycled, resulting in less than 1pc of polyester coming from textile recycling.
But, as regulatory mandates to use more recycled content in PET packaging increase, this risks limiting the amount of rPET available to fibre producers, delegates heard. This makes it essential that the industry can establish a closed-loop recycling system that decouples it from exposure to the PET packaging recycling market.
The textile recycling industry has substantial growth potential, presenters said. By implementing targeted policies, improving infrastructure, and creating financial incentives, the shift toward circular textiles may become a reality. But overcoming technological, economic, and logistical hurdles will require co-ordinated efforts across industries, governments, and consumers to create a sustainable and circular textile economy.
