Textile recycling startup Circ, meanwhile, has been busy setting up frameworks to enable scale for itself and eventually, ideally, for others to follow. In June, at the Future Fabrics Expo in London, they launched Circ-Ready, a network of suppliers with the know-how and capacity to use Circ’s material, with the goal of making it easier for brands to adopt it. “When we engage brands and they say, ‘I want to try out your cellulose or your polyester product,’ I can say, ‘Hey, here’s an existing group of suppliers that can work with our product.’ So we don’t need to repeat phase zero to three over the research and development process, we can start at phase four and move from there,” says Rademan.
Earlier this month, the startup launched Fiber Club in partnership with forest conservation non-profit Canopy and Fashion For Good, all with the idea of improving supplier engagement and “democratising” access to next-gen materials, says Rademan.
“We noticed that brands with big volume orders were able to access recycled fibres but smaller brands were not. And we noticed that the integration process with brands was not happening in tandem with suppliers. It was happening with brands, and then suppliers were brought in as an afterthought,” she says.
Fiber Club, she explains, ensures the same commercial pricing for Circ lyocell for both large and small brands; and it incorporates suppliers from day one. Rademan, who previously helmed the innovation platform at Fashion For Good, wanted the model to become an industry catalyst beyond Circ. It’s going to be owned by Canopy and Fashion For Good, she explains; Circ’s lyocell fibre is the guinea pig for proving it out. “We intend to do a repeat structure for our polyester, but then also Fashion For Good and Canopy can use it for other innovations, other fibre types that we need to scale in order to accelerate next-gen materials,” she says. “I wanted to design a project that was able to accelerate adoption in a way that felt like it was addressing key hurdles.”
Going mainstream
The wave of announcements extends beyond Circ and Reju.
Polyester recycling startup Syre — which, to the shock of many in the industry, was launched by H&M and Vargas Holding less than two weeks after H&M-backed Renewcell declared bankruptcy — has announced plans for a polyester recycling plant in North Carolina to be operational by mid-2025. Chief commercial officer Jad Finck expects Syre to have commercial sales — and commercial volumes coming onto the market — by the end of next year.
