Imagine if your old clothes didn't end up in a landfill but were melted down and spun back into high-quality new outfits. This effort creates a roadmap for turning household fabric waste into raw materials for clothing brands. It's like creating a giant urban mine for fabric, making sure the materials stay in use instead of being burned.
Less than 1% of clothing is recycled into new clothes, leading to a 100 billion euro annual market loss and massive landfill waste.
A full-scale demonstration of recycling polyester, polyamide 6, and cellulosic waste into new garments, including a technical blueprint and circular design guidelines.
If you are a clothing brand dealing with high waste and sustainability targets — this project developed circular design guidelines and prototypes that allow you to create new garments from recycled polyester and polyamide 6.
If you are a waste manager dealing with the January 2025 EU Directive requiring separate textile collection — this project developed a blueprint for sorting and pre-processing that improves the purity of feedstock for recyclers.
If you are a textile mill dealing with volatile raw material prices — this project developed a process to turn household waste into usable yarn, potentially tapping into a 30 billion euros/year market.
Based on available project data, reaching a 30% recycling rate could valorize a 30 billion euros/year market.
Based on available project data, sorting efficiency is currently low and manual sorting remains costly, suggesting that automation is needed to reach full industrial scale.
The project data does not specify licensing terms, but it was coordinated by ADIDAS AG with 15 industry partners involved in the value chain.
It prepares businesses for EU Directive 2018/851, which requires all member states to establish separate household textile waste collection by January 2025.
The project developed an interoperable data model to align captured data with real-world material flows across the recycling value chain.
The consortium is heavily industry-driven, with 15 industrial partners (88% of the group) and only 2 universities. Led by a global giant (ADIDAS AG) and including 4 SMEs across 8 European countries, the group is structured for commercial application rather than academic research, focusing on the entire value chain from waste collection to final product.
Contact ADIDAS AG's sustainability or innovation department
Request the T-REX blueprint and circular design guidelines for your textile line.
