We are developing a facility that only receives non-reusable textiles
As the global textile industry accelerates its shift towards circularity, innovation at the sorting and pre-processing stage has emerged as a critical enabler of true fibre-to-fibre recycling. At the forefront of this transformation is Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems, a UK-based company redefining the future of textile waste management.
In a landmark move, Circle-8 recently secured its first standalone, AI-driven automated textile sorting line from Danish innovation company NewRetex. Supported by the ACT UK project and Innovate UK, this acquisition marks a significant milestone in the company’s mission to establish a national network of Automated Textile Sorting & Pre-processing (ATSP) facilities. These facilities are designed to tackle the UK’s annual 700,000 tonnes of non-reusable textiles—diverting them from landfill and incineration, and transforming them into feedstock for industrial-scale recycling.
In this exclusive conversation with Fibre2Fashion, Cyndi Rhoades, Co-founder and CEO of Circle-8, delves into the implications of this acquisition, the evolving landscape of textile recycling, and the infrastructure and partnerships Circle-8 is building to make circular textile systems a reality across the UK.
Circle-8 focuses on fibre-to-fibre recycling. Could you walk us through the lifecycle of a garment that enters your system and how it gets regenerated into a new product?
At our first Automated Textile Sorting and Pre-processing facility (ATSP) we will be aggregating high volumes of textiles that are worn out/damaged and not reusable. We call these ‘non-reusable textiles’ or NRTs. At the ATSPs we will use automated systems to sort the textiles by fibre composition (cotton, polyester, poly cotton, wool, acrylic etc), remove ‘disruptors’ (buttons, zips etc) and de-size garments to turn them into feedstock for open loop, mechanical and chemical textile recycling processes.
How does Circle-8 ensure that hard-to-recycle textiles, such as those with complex blends or multiple components, are handled effectively before entering your system?
Circle-8’s ATSP will have an input specification sheet that will be required by all suppliers to the ATSP. This will require that before arrival at the ATSP there is the separation of reusable textiles and that certain items that are not suitable for recycling are not included, e.g. stuffed materials, flame retardant treated materials, multi-layered products (e.g. coats and lined garments) or anything that has been contaminated.
What role will AI and data analytics play in Circle-8’s long-term strategy for textile waste management and recycling?
Circle-8 will utilise AI and data analytics across the post use textiles supply chain to facilitate transparency and traceability of non-reusable textiles that enter the ATSP and the processed textiles that are sent to customers, so that all suppliers, customers and stakeholders are able to assure themselves of end routes and accounting for supply.
Within the textile sorting technology itself, Newretex has developed a ground-breaking solution with innovative technology to sort large quantities of textile waste in precise categories according to material type, material composition and colour—with built in traceability. The sorting line consists of two automatic feeding robots, using 3D cameras and machine vision to separate textiles one-by-one at high capacity. Each textile is then scanned by the ‘NewRetex sensor package’, consisting of NIR, X-ray and VIS-sensors. Advanced machine learning algorithms are used to analyse the data, using their large database to decide how each textile shall be sorted. Having decided where to sort the textile in under one second, the textiles are then sorted using conveyors rather than air blowing, as commonly seen in the industry. This allows for a high energy efficiency and a nice working environment with minimised dust in the air and very low noise levels. For every sorted textile, all data is collected allowing for complete traceability.
How critical is automated sorting technology to the success of circular textile systems, and what advancements are most promising in this space?
There are many exciting developments across different companies that Circle-8 has been looking at. NewRetex has made significant advances in automatically identifying and sorting garments for recycling. What was attractive with NewRetex is not just the sensor technology but the sophisticated and effective robotics for feeding the conveyors and a low energy approach to separating sorted textiles into individual bins.
NewRetex has the only automatic textile sorting for recycling plant in Denmark and is one of only a few textile sorting plants in Europe focusing on automatic sorting for recycling of textiles. NewRetex plans to spread its sorting technologies to other European countries, who are beginning to collect waste textiles, while meeting the growing demand of recycled textile raw materials and recycled products from different industries. By doing so, the goal is to support the establishment of large-scale textile recycling value chains from the textile waste in Europe.
Automated sorting and pre-processing are critical to the success of circular textile systems as they will enable reprocessing close to the source of collection, which is essential for the economics and producing price competitive feedstock for regional recyclers.
How will the acquisition of the NewRetex single line sorter accelerate Circle-8’s progress towards establishing a circular textiles economy in the UK?
Circle-8’s first purchased single line automated sorter with annual capacity of 3,000 tonnes per annum from Danish innovation company Newretex, will play a central role in the ATSP’s success. It will be delivered and commissioned in March 2026. It is the first component of Circle-8’s full-scale 25,000 tonne per annum ATSP, initially operated independently and subsequently as an integral part of the full scale ATSP design. The standalone line will be commissioned as a pre-cursor to the full-scale facility to operationalise supply of non-reusable textiles and customer offtake.
With the UK generating over 700,000 tonnes of non-reusable textiles annually, how will this new sorting line accelerate the shift to fibre-to-fibre recycling at scale?
Automated sorting systems are needed to achieve scale and economic viability. Circle-8’s UK mission is to have three ATSPs that will divert 150,000 tonnes of non-reusable textiles away from landfill and incineration. Collaborating with the wider sector of collector sorters and forward moving retailers, we hope to see many more similar facilities scale up in parallel to support the much-needed transition to fibre-to-fibre recycling.
What are the biggest challenges that are currently limiting the scalability of textile-to-textile recycling across the industry?
We are developing a facility that only receives non-reusable textiles. This means that certain adaptions to current methods for collecting and handling end of use textiles which separate the non-reusable from reusable clothing and materials is needed—close to the source of collection—to reduce unnecessary handling. We are exploring new approaches and commercial relationships to bring efficiencies in this area and no doubt many other solutions will unfold over the coming years to address this challenge. Further efficiencies and economies of scale can be achieved in process design for the facility.
While NewRetex robots and sensors demonstrate remarkable efficiency, they face challenges with specific textiles, such as multi-layer garments which consists of several different materials.
An area which requires further innovation and development is the processing steps and equipment for ‘disruptor removal’ (the removal of buttons, zips, trims etc). However, there are some promising advances, both in relation to the mechanical and chemical recycling value chains, which will no doubt pave the way.
What partnerships are you currently pursuing or planning to pursue to strengthen the supply chain for fibre-to-fibre recycling?
An ecosystem approach is vital to unlocking textile materials circularity. Circle-8 has been building the partnerships needed for an advanced collection and pre-sorting approach to separate re-usable textiles from non-reusable textiles. The ecosystem is being developed to unlock some of the key economic hurdles faced in current post-consumer textiles flows, so that all parts of the circular value chain are economically viable, digitised and traceable, including the ATSP. We are working with retail partners to take economic responsibility for their non-reusable textiles generated during the transition to fibre-to-fibre recycling infrastructure.
How does Circle-8 plan to address the economic viability of fibre-to-fibre recycling, particularly in comparison to virgin material production?
As explained above, partnerships are critical in the ecosystem to unlock some of the key economic hurdles faced in current post-consumer textiles flows, so that all parts of the circular value chain are economically viable, digitised and traceable, including the ATSP. This, along with the chemical recycling, will be developed to achieve, over time, as close to price parity with virgin materials as possible. But this will take time and investment across this emerging market. Significant demand growth is expected in the coming years, driven by upcoming regulation to use recycled content, coupled with growing consumer consciousness and circular materials commitments from retailers to meet ESG and decarbonisation targets. There is also concern with building resilience in supply chains—supply of circular materials made from regionally generated, non-reusable textiles will help to provide security in supply and price stability of raw materials to be reintroduced into European and global textile production supply chains.
How critical is the concept of Digital Product Passports to Circle-8’s vision, and how soon do you expect them to be widely adopted in the UK market?
Digital Product Passports represent the future of the industry, giving greater visibility on the materials composition of a textile product and will support future design for recyclability. The reality is, however that textiles will still need to be sorted through an automated system, at speed and at scale, to make the economics viable for the resulting feedstock for recycling processes.
What types of recycled fibres do you see having the most commercial potential in the near term—polyester, cotton, wool, or man-made cellulosic fibres?
Advances in existing and emerging mechanical recycling processes are happening at pace, though much of this relies on known inputs and post-industrial textiles. However, the potential with post-consumer textiles as feedstock into mechanical processes for cotton and poly/cotton could provide a significant part of the solution, particularly if blended with other fibres. Chemical recycling for polyester and poly/cotton blends is also a game changer and not far on the horizon. While the industrialisation of these processes have had delays getting to market over the last few years, it will be essential that the post-consumer textiles supply chains are ready to feed into them, which means starting to adapt today to ensure the volumes and quality of feedstock will be available and aligned with recycler’s specifications, once these chemical recycling plants are operational.
While we clearly need to see a reduction in consumption volumes of textiles, existing polyester is not going to disappear. With chemical recycling, we can start replacing the use of new polyester made from virgin resources with polyester that we already have in circulation. We are pleased to see the advances with Circulose and look forward to their cotton recycling plant being up and running again with strong downstream suppliers and brand buy in for next-gen man-made cellulosic fibres (MMCFs). Despite the low volumes in comparison to polyester and cotton, there will always be a place for wool recycling. It has been happening for centuries, is available today, and is a no brainer in terms of fibre recycling.
Within the current apparel market, although at significantly lower volumes than cotton, cotton blends, polyester and poly blends, there are areas to explore further on the recycling of mixed fibre compositions and different product sector end uses. Mixed fibre compositions account for a large proportion of what currently gets placed in municipal waste, ending up in landfill/incineration. There is definitely potential for finding new routes for these mixed fibre blends, for instance, in different nonwoven product markets.
Is Circle-8 also exploring opportunities to expand its ecosystem beyond the UK, or are you focused solely on developing the domestic market for now?
We are currently focused on the UK market, setting up a network of 3 regional ATSPs, to provide enough feedstock to supply a 50,000-tonne chemical recycling facility. Our focus is on reprocessing non-reusable textiles into feedstock—as close to the source of collection—prior to getting them into regional recycling processes, which will benefit the economics and sustainability while preventing the widespread export of low to no value materials to regions where they are not currently entering into recycling processes.
What is your long-term vision for Circle-8 by 2030, and what key milestones are you targeting to get there?
Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems is advancing the circular textiles by working with the industry to build the ecosystem and infrastructure to unlock textile-to-textile recycling. We are driving the design, build and commissioning of a network of automated textile sorting and pre-processing facilities to turn non-reusable textiles into feedstock for fibre-to-fibre recycling processes. Our end goal is to implement an industrial-scale polymer recycling plant for textiles in the UK and ensure that recyclable textiles get back into open loop, mechanical and chemical recycling processes. We are growing the partnerships needed across the textiles value chain, working to divert the UK’s estimated yearly 700,000 tonnes of non-reusable textiles away from export, landfill and incineration to make this circular future reality.
Given that less than one per cent of post-consumer textiles are recycled into new textiles, what systemic changes are needed to shift this percentage meaningfully over the next decade?
Investment in sorting and recycling infrastructure is absolutely critical to achieving meaningful chance over the next decade. This will need supportive legislation.
Are there any policy changes or government incentives you believe are necessary to accelerate the transition to large-scale textile recycling in the UK?
We do not think of unused textiles as waste, they are resources that when processed and recycled effectively can start replacing the use of virgin resources in making new textiles. The collective vision is to work across the entire textiles ecosystem and supply chain to unlock the circular textiles opportunity. Two grand challenges remain, and these both are linked. Firstly, attracting investment to build the infrastructure needed to unlock circular textile materials—including automated sorting and pre-processing facilities and scaling mechanical and chemical recycling. Secondly, legislation is needed to fast track the investment needed for infrastructure.
