Accelerating Circularity has released plans for US trials of commercial scale textile-to-textile regeneration systems in its latest report, Putting Textiles to Good Use.

The report presents the rationale and goals for the trials, including ambitious content minimums of 40% recycled blends and 20% post-consumer inputs for all trials. In response to stakeholder demand, the report also lays out the role, benefits, and responsibilities of each prospective participant.

Accelerating Circularity is a collaborative industry project developed to accelerate the textile industry’s move from linear to circular production routes. It was founded in 2019 with a mission to establish systems that will use the embedded value and resources in existing textiles for new products, reducing the millions of tons of textile waste annually going into landfills and thereby supporting the reduction of the industry’s GHG emissions.

In its latest report, the group proposes specific trials targeting post-industrial and post-consumer feedstocks, mechanical and chemical recycling technologies, recycled cotton, polyester, and manmade cellulosic fibres, and several finished product categories.

These serve as a starting point for trial partner collaboration within the project that will generate multiple circular textile products at mass retail scale.

Brand and retail partners have the option to buy-in at several stages in the process to maximise the potential for the circular fibres to be plugged into existing commercial supply chains. Several major brands and supply chain partners – including those on Accelerating Circularity’s US Steering Committee – have already opted into the project.

“Architect and engineer Buckminster Fuller gave us this piece of advice – to change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete,” said the company’s US Project Manager Janel Twogood. “The fashion and textile industry is embracing historic commitments. Accelerating Circularity is facilitating the engagement of an entire supply chain system to design nothing short of a new model, one that is economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable. The time is right for a systems approach to measure what we can do now and what needs to be built to meet our obligations.”

The full report can be read at - www.acceleratingcircularity.org/research.