The PET textile recycling industry can learn from the PET packaging recycling industry as it looks to scale up, with legislation and investment in collection and processing infrastructure key to increasing recycling rates, delegates at last week's Petcore Advancing Polyester Textile Circularity webinar heard.
Supportive EU legislation is imperative to increasing collection and recycling rates for PET textiles, which currently stand at 20pc and 7pc, respectively, delegates heard. Presenters called for mandatory recycled content as requirements for textiles to stimulate demand and suggested that a ban on exports of unsorted textiles from Europe would create a more stable market and keep the feedstock within Europe. And it was suggested that this should be combined with harmonised extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems to provide sufficient financial support to expand collection infrastructure.
And participants called for product design to better support the recycling industry. Transitioning to non-material fabrics rather than multilayer materials, and adopting digital marking for easy identification, could help streamline recycling processes, they said. Clear labelling regulations are also needed to ensure that materials can be easily sorted.
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