Fashion for Good launches textile circularity report

Amsterdam-based Fashion for Good has launched its Sorting for Circularity USA report.

The report covers consumer disposal behavior, textile waste composition and the potential for fiber-to-fiber recycling in the U.S., while providing insights into investments, infrastructure developments and the next steps toward circularity.

“The Sorting for Circularity USA Project addresses a key challenge in the textile industry: transforming textile waste into a valuable resource,” says Katrin Ley, managing director at Fashion for Good. “This project investigates the connection between consumer behavior, waste generation and available recycling technologies. The goal is to establish a system where all textiles are utilized effectively, minimizing waste.”

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In the pursuit of establishing a functional reverse supply chain and the necessary infrastructure, the report says two critical areas lack data: consumer disposal behavior and material characteristics of postconsumer textiles. The report addressed these gaps through a national consumer survey and waste composition analysis.

The survey revealed that 60 percent of respondents divert textiles, while 4 percent discard them, driven primarily by factors such as condition and fit. The waste composition analysis revealed that over 56 percent of postconsumer textiles are suitable for fiber-to-fiber recycling. Cotton and polyester were the most prevalent fiber types, indicating potential for these textiles to be used as feedstock for mechanical and chemical recycling processes.

According to the report, there is a $1.5 billion opportunity for fiber-to-fiber recycling by redirecting end-of-life textiles from landfills to recycling streams. The report outlines growth strategies for the U.S. textile recycling industry, emphasizing enhanced financial value through efficiency improvements, increased commodity valuation and policy, including extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation.

The report stresses the importance of collaboration among stakeholders, including brands, government, retailers, consumers, collectors, sorters, recyclers and financial institutions, to promote circularity, invest in research and development and advocate for supportive policies and incentives to drive technological innovation. It goes on to outline opportunities to build on these insights and assess the feasibility of different sorting business models and automated sorting technologies to create a demo facility suitable for closed-loop textile recycling.

“This research provides defensible insight into two parts of the recovery value chain with little to no existing data. Firstly, how consumers decide what to do with textiles they no longer want and secondly, the fiber composition of postconsumer textiles,” says Marisa Adler, senior consultant at Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Resource Recycling Systems (RRS). “With these new findings, we can enhance collection systems to capture more textiles, calculate the financial potential for textile recycling and build supportive, data-driven policy.”

Launched in January 2023 by Fashion for Good and RRS, the Sorting for Circularity USA Project brings together Fashion for Good brand partners Adidas, Inditex, Target, Levi Strauss & Co., external partners H&M Group, Lululemon, Eastman, Nordstrom and the New York State Center for Sustainable Materials Management (NYS CSMM). Key project implementation partners including the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles (SMART) Association, Goodwill Industries International, Helpsy, Goodwill of Colorado, Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, Goodwill of the San Francisco Bay, Goodwill Suncoast and United Southern Waste.

The Sorting for Circularity framework, introduced by Fashion for Good with Amsterdam-based Circle Economy in 2021, formed the basis for the project and used Matoha’s near infrared (NIR) technology to assess textile waste composition and identify the potential for fiber-to-fiber recycling.