The project is driven by Fashion for Good, a platform for sustainable fashion innovation, with catalytic funding provided by Laudes Foundation and facilitated by brand partners, Adidas, Bestseller and Zalando, as well as Inditex as an external partner. Its partners Arvind Limited, Birla Cellulose, Levi Strauss & Co, Otto and PVH Corp are participating as part of the wider working group, Fashion for Good said in a press release.

Circle Economy leads the creation and implementation of the methodology, with support from Refashion, to assess textile waste composition. Both organisations build on their extensive experience from similar projects, such as the Interreg Fibersort Project and previous textile composition analyses.

The analysis will provide the most representative snapshot of textile waste composition generated in Europe. Fashion for Good and Circle Economy will map the current and future capabilities of textile recyclers in the region – illuminating crucial gaps between the sorting and recycling industry, and the innovation, investment and policy changes required to accelerate circularity. Findings from this research will ultimately enable sorters to take action through the support of a digital platform that matches their textile waste with recyclers.

“The aim of the 18-month project is to create a greater link between textile sorters and textile recyclers; stimulating a recycling market for unwanted textiles that can generate new revenue streams for sorters. To achieve a circular system, a new end-market for non-reusable textile is required, with an infrastructure and digital matching system that can support activities of sorters and recyclers,” said Katrin Ley, managing director, Fashion for Good.

The project brings together the largest industrial textile sorters in the North-West European region; including the Boer Group, I:CO (a part of SOEX Group), JMP Wilcox (a part of Textile Recycling International) and TEXAID.

The French accredited Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) eco-organisation Refashion, a key project partner, provides input into the methodology and leads the NIR scanner calibration. Aligning the Sorting for Circularity Project with their own study in France ensures methodologies and findings can be standardised, compared and implemented on a larger scale.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)