Carbios is teaming up with Tomra Textiles to establish a new textile waste collection, sorting and preparation stream in Northern Europe.

The material prepared via automated sensor-based sorting technology will be transported to the first commercial Carbios plant which is currently under construction in Longlaville, France. It will then be converted back to monomers for polyester fibres using the  enzymatic depolymerization technology developed by Carbios.

Tomra Textiles is part of Tomra Horizon, the venture arm established by Tomra Group to explore new business opportunities and alternative business models leveraging the group’s technology and decades of know-how. The group specialises in waste management systems, material recovery technologies and food processing with sensor-based sorting and grading technology. Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Tomra has more than 110,000 installations in 100 markets operational globally and employs 5,400 people, with annual revenues of €1.4 billion.

“The textile industry has been optimised for cost and efficiency for centuries,” said Vibeke Krohn, head of Tomra Textiles. “Closing the gap means scaling all the elements of a circular value chain – from collection to sorting to recycling. Future recycling solutions depend on reliable access to feedstock and through this collaboration with Carbios we hope to stimulate the further investments needed to scale textile circularity.”

“Carbios is taking the lead in forming an efficient value chain for textile circularity and actively engages with global industry leaders such as Tomra to shape the future of sustainable textiles,” added Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios.

www.tomra.com

www.carbios.com