Tackling global textile waste and moving to circular supply chains

Speaking to Innovation Forum’s Tanya Richard, Cyndi Rhoades, CEO of Worn Again Technologies, outlines the process she and her colleagues are developing that can take in blended polyester and cotton textiles and recapture the raw materials – polyester and cellulose from the cotton – while separating out the dies and other components.

Rhoades argues that chemical recycling is the missing link that will allow the industry to go circular. The challenge of textiles waste is huge – only 1% of end-of-use textiles are recovered into the supply chain. It also is part of the plastics pollution debate – and Rhoades argues that a practical answer is to think more about how to re-use the materials that are already in the value chain, while also developing better product design and microfibre capture processes, for example.