Fabric Innovations in Polyester Recycling

It takes between 20 years and two centuries to recycle polyester fabric, which is why governments around the world are scrambling to find ways to manufacture materials with similar properties that won’t harm the environment as badly. That’s because polyester is a popular fabric for athleisure garments – it stretches, stays dry and is durable. 

Countries are also investigating more sustainable methods of manufacturing and recycling other synthetic fabrics. Currently, they have implemented stricter laws regarding sustainable manufacturing and waste management practices.  

Why Polyester Recycling is Important

There are many reasons it’s crucial to recycle polyester and other materials in the UK. Let’s take a look:

·      Only 1% of fabrics in the UK are recycled, according to statistics in The Green Business Journal.

·      People produce more than half a million tonnes of textile waste from polyester in the UK.

·      Polyester is used in clothing and manufactured into containers for food and liquids. It’s also used in ‘thermoforming’, a process that uses heat to make a particular item more pliable and mould it into a specific shape.

·      Until recently, we had no polyester fabric recycling systems in the UK. This left us two options – incineration or ending up in landfills. There is a recycling plant in the UK now – read all about Re:claim below, the innovation of a British workwear clothes brand.

What Does Recycling Polyester Do?

Recycling Polyester is Energy-Efficient

Recycling polyester uses less energy than producing the fabric, which is why recycling is an energy-efficient alternative.

Polyester Recycling Reduces Carbon Emissions

The polyester recycling process is sustainable, as it reduces CO2  emissions. This has a positive impact on the environment.

This Recycling Process Consumes Less Energy

When polyester is recycled, less energy is used. This is a sustainable method of recycling if compared to other textile recycling processes. 

You can read our guide to Recycled Polyester here!

Innovative Ways to Recycle Polyester Fabric

Here are some forward-thinking methods of recycling polyester that are currently in play:

World’s First PET Biorecycling Plant

In 2024, biochemistry startup Carbios created the first PET Depolymerisation Plant in Longlaville, France. Its recycling process enables PET plastic and textile waste to be recycled without solvents. It uses an enzyme called ‘Cutinase’ to “break down polyester material found in textile waste, including blended fabrics”. As the process is molecular, it creates virgin-quality fabric that can be recycled several times. Brands currently collaborating with Carbios include PUMA and Salomon.

Local Innovations Go Way Back

In 2023, UK designer Stella McCartney partnered with the biological recycling brand Protein Evolution, taking excess cut-off polyester and nylon fabrics from her previous collections and using ‘enzymatic technology’ to recycle these fabrics. The result is a new fibre made from this textile plus plastic waste. The brand is currently testing how to use this fibre to make new clothing, accessories and other recyclable products.

UK's First Polyester Recycling Plant

A collaboration between the Salvation Army Trading Company and UK workwear clothing brand Project Plan B, Project Re:claim is attempting to solve the UK’s polyester textile waste problem. Project Re:claim has partnered with the Circular Textiles Foundation, a non-profit organisation focusing on creating circularity for the UK textiles industry.

The plant, in Kettering, Northamptonshire, which opened in 2024, recycles post-consumer clothing and other materials into fabric for the fashion and textile industries. Its process recycles polyester fabric into rPET pellets made from textiles in a similar way to the method used to transform plastic bottles into recycled polyester fabric (rPET). “These pellets use almost 10 times less energy (11%) compared to pellets made from virgin polyester,” Re:claim explains.

Learn about our maakeLess Waste Initiative here.

Brands Transforming Waste Into Virgin Fibre

Netherlands company CuRe Technology has collaborated with NHL Stenden University to create a low-energy method to endlessly recycle polyester, including bottles, carpets and clothing into high-quality, ready-to-use Recycled Polyester fabric. They are sharing their knowledge with other global companies to create a positive environmental impact on fabric.

Refiberd is a US-based women-run business that transforms textiles into new, reusable materials using AI, robotics and green chemical recycling. “From our deep research backgrounds in artificial intelligence and textile engineering, we believe in the power of technology to unlock a 100% circular economy,” they say.

Popular sportswear brand Lululemon has teamed up with Samsara Eco, a recycling textile business, to create infinitely recycled polyester and nylon fabrics from Lululemon’s sportswear clothing. This is just one way the popular athleisure brand hopes to achieve its goal of producing 100% of its products with sustainably recycled products by 2030.

At maake, we created a comprehensive guide on the way to Create Sustainable Fabrics From Textile Waste. Take a look for some inspiration.

Important Initiatives

The Full Circle Textiles Project was created in 2021 to focus on polyester chemical recycling for the fashion industry. Retail fashion and athleisure brands such as Adidas, Target and several others have banded together with innovators, funders and supply chain partners to create an awareness of the importance of recycling polyester and foster financing in recycling polyester materials.

The 2025 Recycled Polyester Challenge is being run by the Textile Exchange. This challenge encourages businesses and design brands to use recycled fabrics instead of synthetic polyester. They hope to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, plastic waste and resource consumption. The challenge concentrates on creating a more circular economy and assisting the fabric industry in being more sustainable.

We mentioned Project Re:Claim earlier. This is a partnership between the Salvation Army Trading Co (SATCoL) and Project Plan B, which has a specialised focus on a textile-to-textile technology system which it uses to process used clothing and fabrics. Their recycling plant, which is based in Kettering, produces rPET pellets from clothing waste. It is the first commercial-scale polyester recycling system in Europe. It also won the 2024 Plastic Industries Award in December.

Other advancements in chemical recycling technologies, according to the Textile Exchange, include degrading plastic waste and reusing it to make new plastics or as an alternative form of fuel. Polyester is being broken down into enzymes by companies like Evoralis in the hope of revolutionising plastic recycling. These innovative methods are being carried out at the University of Cambridge’s Hollfrelder Lab, in the hope of “paving the way for a truly circular economy”.

Innovations from 2025 Onwards

Lots have been happening in polyester recycling innovations lately, so we thought we’d add a few of the latest innovations.

Chemical Recycling

There are two types of fabric recycling: mechanical, which can decrease the quality of the fabric fibres, and chemical, which breaks the fabric down to produce good quality fabric. Chemical recycling is a newer innovation. Companies using this system include:

·       German polyester recycling company, Reju, repurposes polyester, breaking down waste polyester fabric to its molecular components and then rebuilding it into a stronger, quality fibre that can be made into completely new garments. Reju’s Regeneration Hub Zero in Frankfurt takes polyester waste and chemically recycles it. The chemical process the brand uses was developed with IBM.

·       Retail brand H&M has partnered with polyester fabric producer Selenis to establish a chemical fabric recycling plant in North Carolina, USA, called Syre, that produces “chemically recycled” polyester.

Glycosis Using Microwaves

Using microwaves for chemical recycling has been studied at the Centre for Plastics Innovation at the University of Delaware. Microwaves heat up extremely fast, and the method, called glycolysis, takes just 15 minutes to break down polyester waste and recycle it into a better textile. A lot of research and experiments are currently underway before this process can be used to recycle polyester commercially.

Hydrothermal Technology for Polycotton Fabrics

Recycling company Circ is using “groundbreaking” technology to separate polyester from cotton in polycotton fabric blends and reuse the materials. Polycotton apparently comprises 77% of the global textile market, which is why this technology is so innovative. The major recycling innovation uses “patented hydrothermal technology” to separate the two fabrics and recover them individually.

Waste Transformed Into Polyester Chips

In March 2025, sports brand PUMA joined forces with RE&UP Recycling Technologies for a sustainability effort to transform textile waste into recycled polyester chips. This is a result of PUMA's goal to have 30% of polyester fabric in their apparel “sourced from fibre-to-fibre recycling by 2030”. 

Some Good News

According to a report on the Recycled Polyester Market (2025 to 2030), “The global recycled polyester market size was estimated at £11.5 million in 2024 and is projected to reach £1,200 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 9.25% from 2025 to 2030. The market has been experiencing steady growth as industries increasingly prioritise sustainability and circular economy practices”.

Hopefully, some of the innovative methods we discussed here will transform waste into a valuable resource and lessen the fashion industry’s environmental impact. We remain ever hopeful that the more industries and brands become aware of the sustainability problem, the more we will be able to address it and find ways to be more sustainable in the future.

To spur you on, why not read all about how maake focuses on sustainability and our initiatives in the workplace.