Accelerating Circularity

Growing scrutiny of textile waste is exposing a technical reality: recyclers remain limited by trim heterogeneity, variable feedstock quality and labour-intensive preprocessing. From this vantage point, Eileen Mockus, COO at Accelerating Circularity, outlines how these structural barriers influence both early-stage pilots and industrial recycling lines. Her analysis points to the need for standardised specifications and coordinated investment to improve outcomes.

Accelerating Circularity has unveiled a white paper revealing how trims, adhesives, and labels block progress in textile-to-textile recycling. The Toward Circular Systems for Trims and Ignored Materials (CSTIM) report examines overlooked components that disrupt fibre recovery, outlining solutions for scalable sorting, preprocessing, and design-for-disassembly—calling brands, recyclers, and manufacturers to align on standards for genuine circular systems.

Polyester, the most widely used fibre worldwide, and a key pollutant to boot, poses many systemic and tech challenges when it comes to sorting, pre-processing and recycling, says a new study by nonprofit Accelerating Circularity.

There is feasibility and value in engaging in circular, textile-to-textile recycling systems for cotton, as also benefits for all involved stakeholders, affirms Accelerating Circularity's much-anticipated Global Cotton Report.

The Accelerating Circularity Project (ACP) has begun work on ‘Building Circular Systems’ (BCS) that promise to enable the reduction of the textile industry’s GHG impacts and reduce the volume of textiles going to landfill and incineration. 

A ‘playbook’ from nonprofit Accelerating Circularity charts out the fundamental steps for creating circular systems to turn spent textiles into the raw materials used to produce new textiles.

A comprehensive directory of textile recyclers from 27 countries has been released by nonprofit Accelerating Circularity in a bid to create new supply chains and business models to turn spent textiles into mainstream raw materials.

An ‘Industry-Aligned Action Plan’ explores how fashion brands and retailers can leverage Digital ID technology to establish circular services in every product they manufacture and profitably scale up fashion’s circular economy.