Each second, somewhere in the world, a truckload of textiles is emptied into landfill or incinerated (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2017). With EU textile waste now weighing in at 5.8 million tonnes per year (over 11kg per person), regulators are stepping in to support solutions that turn waste into value (EEA, 2019).
With looming obligations for EU countries to build circularity into design, retailers are likely to look toward regenerative and recycled textile options.
Textile innovation company Circular Systems™ joined forces with FibreTrace® to implement physical traceability technology into Texloop™ RCOT™ recycled cotton on a global scale.
Texloop™ is the global textile recycling platform launched by Circular Systems™’ in 2018. Texloop™ Recycling upgrades post-industrial as well as pre/post-consumer cotton textile waste into high performing RCOT™ recycled cotton fibre, which is recognised as the highest-quality and most consistent recycled cotton fibre in the global market.
The technology puts recycled cotton at the forefront of the field as one of the lowest-impact fibre choices. Texloop™’s recycled cotton uses up to 99% less water than conventional cotton (and completely mitigates land use), 54% less energy, and emits 20% less carbon.
FibreTrace® ensures information integrity via physical traceability markers suspended in the recycled fibres. The technology is used to securely collect, store and communicate key supply chain information. The traceability solution guarantees the fibre itself is traced and reduces chance of human error or fraud by waiving reliance on documentation or labelling.
The combined power of Circular Systems™’s Texloop™and FibreTrace® provides a footing for retailers to move ahead of looming obligations for EU countries, as regulation across the industry calls for increased environmental accountability.
“Circular Systems is honored to be working in strategic partnership with FibreTrace, which we see as the new industry standard technology for traceability. This partnership will enable traceability on all of our Texloop™ and Agraloop™ fibre products by 2024. FibreTrace enables the Texloop platform to bring much needed traceability and transparency to the world of Recycled Cotton, and in doing so we will help to improve the authenticity, and quality of the global recycled cotton sector, “– Isaac Nichelson, CEO of Circular Systems.
Textile impact and supply chain traceability are inextricably linked. Without an authenticated, traceable custody of supply, retailers are unable to quantify, communicate or report on their garments’ true impact. Lack of evidence leaves consumers asking, are recycled fibres green, or greenwashing?
Allied in the pursuit of accountability in the textile industry, FibreTrace® and Circular Systems™’ collaboration tracks and illuminates the circular economies attached to recycled fibres to provide retailers and consumers with absolute confidence in their products’ impact.
FibreTrace® will be activated in all Texloop™ and Agraloop™ products by 2024.
