The fashion industry has a very well-known waste problem. Almost all (roughly 97%) of clothing eventually ends up in a landfill, according to McKinsey, and it doesn’t take very long for the lifecycle of the latest apparel to reach its end: 60% of clothing manufactured hits a landfill within 12 months of its manufacturing date. The rise of fast fashion, multinational production, and the introduction of cheaper plastic fibers has exacerbated the situation. As other industries make progress on carbon reduction solutions, fashion’s carbon footprint is forecast to grow — it is predicted to account for over 25% of the world’s global carbon budget by 2050.
The apparel industry wants to be taken seriously when it comes to recycling, but so far, refashioning old clothing into new clothing has barely made a dent, at least partially due to the complexity of recycling blended fabrics. But that has also led to new business models at companies including Evrnu, Renewcell, Spinnova, and SuperCircle.
Stacy Flynn, CEO of Evrnu — which ranked No. 37 on the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50 list — developed a textile recycling platform, NuCycl, that can transform discarded clothing into new fiber, and it says equal or outperform 90% of fibers, including cotton, nylon, and polyester, on cost and quality using existing textile supply chain equipment.
Evrnu’s first big break was a partnership with Levi’s to create the company’s classic 511 jeans in 2016, and it has also launched pilots with Stella McCartney and Adidas. Late last year, Evrnu worked on a limited collection with fast fashion clothing giant — and consumer consumption flashpoint — Zara, using its recycled textile waste material.
Zara has a stated goal of using only 100% organic cotton, recycled, or sustainable material fabrics in all of its clothing and 100% recycled polyester and organic linen by 2025.
But it isn’t yet clear how feasible that timeline is for any of the major brands.
“While there are numerous technological solutions to making clothing more sustainable, the technology does not yet match the scale and demand of the global fashion industry,” a Zara spokesperson said.
Adidas says it is on track to using only recycled polyester by the end of 2023 — currently at 96% — which is a year ahead of its original goal. But an Adidas spokeswoman added that changes up and down the supply chain are critical to these goals being met. The share of recycled polyester worldwide is currently at 15%.
“In order to solve the system problem consumption needs to decrease, longevity of apparel needs to increase (reuse, repair), and product design needs to embrace sustainability (recyclable/designed for dis-assembly)” Flynn said. “All of these run counter to the current fast fashion business model unless we can scale solutions.”
Even if these new business models are successful, investors should not be expecting the biggest payoff to be measured in recycling business dollars, said Chloe Songer, CEO of SuperCircle, which offers consumers and brands the ability to have a variety of finished products mailed to its warehouses for sorting and recycling — and credit towards the purchase of items from the Thousand Fell recycled sneaker brand run by its CEO.
“You can’t look at recycling and think you’re going to make a million bucks recycling cotton t-shirts, because you’re not,” she said. “You have to find another way to make it make economic sense, and these business models are going to be really interesting in the next few years.”
Levi’s has several models of iconic jeans now being made with recycled textiles, but the problem is much bigger, says Paul Dillinger, head of the company’s global product innovation. He pointed to the promotional t-shirts that runners get for their 5K that are typically made of 50% cotton and 50% polyester, or a fleece sweater made for children that includes both cotton and polyester to comply with fire safety concerns, both which are pervasive products and add to the challenge of recycling mixed materials.
“You’ve got all of these structural, behavioral, and material challenges, and somehow we’re not getting the message out that it is urgent,” Dillinger said. “Somehow, the civic engagement and collective understanding that it’s not just doable, but necessary, hasn’t permeated our collective social behavior,” Dillinger said. “Are people going to meet us midway with their behavior and then are regulations and infrastructure going to meet us to take that behavior across the line? I don’t know. That’s the big unknown.”
Ultimately, the benefits need to accrue to both the apparel maker and its recycling partner for these startups to be successful. Textile recycling companies like Renewcell, Evrnu, SuperCircle and Spinnova view co-branding with major consumer companies as a key element to ensuring consumers understand the value of what they’re buying and bolstering brand loyalty. “It’s about making wise purchase decisions because your buying power is how you’re making decisions. Look for brands that have strategies around sustainability … I think being loyal to those brands is very important,” said Tricia Carey, chief commercial officer at Renewcell, a Swedish textile recycling company, which opened the world’s first commercial-scale textile-to-textile chemical recycling pulp mill.
