End of Use

The end-of-use stage focuses on extending the life of materials and garments by enabling technologies and infrastructure that can redirect garments into reuse and recycling. This supply chain step involves innovation in sorting, chemical recycling processes, and waste match-making platforms. Directing textile waste coming from factories and households into new use phases allows the industry to reduce waste and reuse materials to build a regenerative system.

Projects

    Matoha

    Matoha specialises in automated sorting solutions through near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. Their technology enables the accurate identification and sorting of materials, contributing to better diversion of textile waste feedstock to the recycling industry. Founded in 2018 (UK).

    Protein Evolution

    Founded by a team of scientists and engineers, Protein Evolution uses a combination of biology and chemistry to transform waste into high-value products. The company’s goal is to unlock the potential of waste to be a valuable resource, in a bid to help the materials industry transition to a lower-carbon, more circular economy. (US)

    Re:lastane

    Re:lastane focuses on the separation and recycling of polyester and polyester blended fabrics. They have developed a patent pending “Relastane” polyester recycling system, which realises the separation of polyester fibres from cotton, nylon, spandex and other blended fibres. (China)

    DePoly

    DePoly’s advanced recycling technology converts unsorted, dirty end-of-life plastics and fibres into virgin-grade raw materials. They focus on items that cannot typically be recycled due to complex blends, dyes, contaminants, etc. Their low-energy process uses simple, green chemicals and operates at room temperature, all without the need to pre-wash, pre-sort, or separate out other materials. (Switzerland)

    Ioncell

    Ioncell Oy develops patented Ioncell® technology, which transforms cellulosic bio-materials into new, high-performance textile fibres in a sustainable way. Their technology can improve the quality when textile waste is recycled into new fibres, therefore supporting the inevitable transformation to a circular economy in the clothing and textile industry. (Finland)

    Refiberd

    Refiberd offer an integrated automated sorting and chemical recycling technology to deal with blended post-consumer textile waste. By utilising a combination of spectroscopy, machine learning and image processing for sorting and custom cellulose dissolution for chemical recycling, Refiberd’s technology can reduce material waste to landfill and lower CO2 emissions. Founded in 2020 (US).

    IDELAM

    IDELAM’s technology enables delamination of multi-material products or waste, such as jackets and footwear, through processes utilising supercritical CO2. The disassembly of such products allows for more effective recycling and reuse of substrates. Founded in 2019 (France).

    Premirr Plastics

    Premirr Plastics have developed a continuous flow-through (CFT) system to recycle PET materials into a BHET monomer that can then be used to manufacture PET products containing recycled content. The technology enables closed-loop polyester textile recycling, both reducing textile waste and reliance on petroleum-derived virgin PET. Founded in 2015 (US).