The race to commercialize attire recycling is heating up. On Might 20, Reju, a startup inside a French engineering and fossil gas firm, introduced plans to construct a polyester recycling plant within the Netherlands. Its projected annual output: 300 million articles of clothes.
Since its launch 18 months in the past, Reju has opened a “Regeneration Hub Zero” demonstration plant in Frankfurt, Germany, which is anticipated to formally come on-line this yr. The corporate has additionally inked partnerships with textile collectors and sorters and spoken with greater than 100 manufacturers and retailers to drum up curiosity for its Reju Polyester product, based on CEO Patrik Frisk.
“We’re speaking to all people within the American market, and all people within the European market,” mentioned Frisk, a former Below Armour chief government with many years at manufacturers together with The North Face, Timberland and Gore-Tex.
The worldwide reputation of polyester, brewed from the fossil fuels which have hastened the local weather disaster, has skyrocketed in latest many years, that includes in two-thirds of recent clothes. The world churns out 33 million metric tons of plastic-based fibers every year. Solely 3 % will get recycled, based on the Ellen MacArthur Basis.
The waste is a mounting downside for the style manufacturers and retailers which can be steadily being pressured to take care of their supplies after finish of use, due to prolonged producer duty (EPR) laws within the European Union and California.
Competitors
Quite a few ventures are throwing fortunes and daring claims behind making a round economic system for polyester that treats tossed-out textiles as a commodity slightly than a legal responsibility.
One Reju competitor, Circ, based mostly in Danville, Virginia, shared plans on Might 19 to construct a $500 million polyester recycling plant in France, backed by the French authorities and the European Union. Its recycled fibers have appeared in garments by Zara, Patagonia, H&M and Levi’s.
Ambercycle and Worn Once more Applied sciences additionally break down combined textiles, such because the polyester-cotton blends ubiquitous to T-shirts, into uncooked materials for brand spanking new garments.
A household affair
One factor that units Reju aside: household connections. Its mum or dad firm, Technip Energies, has been within the polyester enterprise for practically 70 years. Its know-how seems in 40 % of the world’s 370 steam crackers, the commercial crops cranking out ethylene, a constructing block of polyester. TEN Zimmer, which Technip purchased in 2015, processes polyester and nylon, one other recycling frontier for trend. One thousand polyester crops world wide use its know-how.
Technip Energies, which in the present day has a 17,000-person workforce, was shaped in 2021 as a by-product of TechnipFMC, which was created in 2017 when Technip and FMC Applied sciences merged. Technip Energies’ origins replicate the evolution of the oil and fuel trade. In 1958, Technip took form beneath the French Petroleum Institute, or IFP, in Paris. FMC Applied sciences originated in 1883 as an insecticide maker.
Reju, based in 2023 and using 75 employees to this point, is a part of Technip Energies’ makes an attempt to transition to a lower-carbon future. These makes an attempt additionally embrace investments in blue hydrogen, carbon seize and storage and recycled and biobased chemical substances.
Technip Energies’ 2021 sustainability report set internet zero deadlines of 2030 for Scopes 1 and a pair of, and of 2050 for Scope 3. It isn’t engaged on these emissions objectives with the Science Primarily based Targets initiative (SBTi), nonetheless, which in 2022 placed on maintain its consideration of oil and fuel firms.
In 2024, Technip Energies grew revenues by 14 %, to six.9 billion euros.
Regional hubs
Not surprisingly, Reju is focusing on inhabitants facilities rife with undesirable, post-consumer garments.
In the USA, it’s finalizing the main points of a brand new plant whereas collaborating with Goodwill and Waste Administration on a garment recycling pilot. In April, Waste Administration launched a textile curbside assortment service in Troutdale, Oregon, which will likely be replicated in different cities. Goodwill kinds the attire and can present what it might probably’t promote to Reju.
“Reju has constructed a reputable community of feedstock suppliers, which is usually a much bigger downside to resolve than the chemistry,” mentioned Marcian Lee, an analyst with Lux Analysis, “so I believe it has a great shot at success.”
The polyester entice
Like it or hate it, polyester is practical, sturdy and low-cost. “You may have a very good product, a extremely environment friendly system, that’s one of many largest commodities on this planet,” Frisk mentioned. It can take a era to scale a possible substitute. Till then, Frisk added, “we will both proceed to place it into the bottom or we will burn it.”
Until in fact, we recycle it. Reju breaks down polyester molecules right into a monomer, earlier than constructing it again up once more. It makes use of IBM’s VolCat know-how, co-developed with Below Armour whereas Frisk was its CEO. In 2019, IBM shared with Trellis that, simply as VolCat — quick for unstable catalyst — might deal with polyester bottles coated with milk or different gunk, it might probably handle the dyes and pigments on polyester clothes.
By returning “to the origin of polyester,” Frisk mentioned, Reju can design lower-shedding artificial fibers, yarns and materials that hurt nature much less and will likely be simpler to handle at finish of use.
Regardless of the effectivity and scalability of their recycling approaches, Reju and its rivals enter an trade being constructed from scratch.
“We truly spend much less time than you would possibly suppose on the know-how itself, and far more on constructing out the system, from each a feedstock perspective and the downstream perspective of getting it to truly work as a round system,” Frisk mentioned.
Reju’s meant new website, on the 1,900-acre Chemelot Industrial Park, is tucked into the southern tip of the Netherlands, between Belgium and Germany. Technip Energies’ board will make the ultimate funding resolution, which is anticipated to fall between $200 million and $300 million.
Laying down the pipes
“The textile trade is actually catching a free experience on infrastructure that’s been constructed for different stuff,” Frisk mentioned. “The oil pipes and the refineries and the cracking crops, all of that has been constructed for various issues and we’re solely a small a part of it on the finish,” he mentioned.
“Our post-consumer textile waste stream must be as sturdy because the oil pipeline that comes out of the oil ship and goes right into a refinery, then finally into the polyester plant,” Frisk mentioned. “In order that has been the primary precedence, as a result of when you don’t construct that, you’ll not have something to promote to the manufacturers or the retailers.”
The following problem will likely be convincing manufacturers to pay extra for the recycled various. “Till we’ve got value parity the usage of recycled fibers goes to stay negligible, even with ties to a heavy polyester use model,” mentioned Liz Alessi, an attire sustainability advisor in New York Metropolis.
