A Franco-Japanese consortium has processed several tens of tons of European post-consumer garments into recycled polyester – one of the first tests of its kind at representative industrial conditions, and a concrete step toward circular supply chains for sportswear and outdoor brands.
A joint testing program has produced commercially usable recycled polyester monomer from post-consumer European textile waste, at an operating scale not previously reached under representative industrial conditions.
Axens, IFPEN (IFP Energies Nouvelles, a French public research and innovation organization), and JEPLAN said on April 21 that their Rewind PET chemical recycling technology successfully processed several tens of tons of polyester-rich garments sourced from French public collection networks. The trial ran at JEPLAN’s semi-industrial facility in Japan, which has an annual throughput capacity of 1,000 tons, and produced several tens of tons of BHET, the monomer used to make virgin-equivalent polyester. The material is now being converted into yarn, fabric, and finished garments, completing what the companies describe as a full textile-to-textile loop.
Why the 1% figure shows the scale of the textile recycling problem
Synthetic fibers account for about 60% of global textile production, according to the Textile Exchange Materials Market Report, and sportswear is among the biggest users of polyester. Even so, less than 1% of textile production currently uses fibers truly recycled from end-of-life garments, rather than from recycled plastic bottles or other non-textile waste streams.
That gap between the amount of polyester in circulation and the infrastructure needed to turn it back into usable raw material has long been a constraint for brands pursuing circularity commitments under frameworks such as the EU textile strategy and upcoming eco-design requirements. Chemical recycling at the molecular level offers what mechanical recycling cannot: material that is functionally equivalent to virgin polyester, suitable for performance applications where strength and durability matter.
From packaging to apparel: adapting the process
Rewind PET was originally developed and commercialized for recycling PET packaging, including food-contact-grade applications, a technically demanding standard. Extending it to textiles required adapting the process to handle blended and contaminated post-consumer garments, which differ significantly from bottles in composition and sorting quality.
Two French companies, Nouvelles Fibres Textile and Mapea, prepared the feedstock: post-consumer textile waste from the French national collection system, sorted and preprocessed to meet the process’s input requirements. The test is described as one of the first of its kind carried out under genuinely representative industrial conditions.
The technology is designed to be installed at existing polyester production sites, allowing operators to substitute recycled monomers for fossil-derived inputs without building dedicated new infrastructure.
Licensing model targets local circular loops
Under an exclusive licensing arrangement, IFPEN and JEPLAN granted Axens worldwide rights to sublicense Rewind PET for textile applications to any industrial operator seeking to build a local or regional recycling loop. Axens said the model will allow brands and converters to build closed-loop supply chains within a single market, reducing reliance on cross-continental waste logistics.
Target end markets include sportswear and outdoor apparel, as well as home furnishings and certain luxury goods that use polyester in controlled proportions.
About
Axens is a process technology provider and subsidiary of IFPEN, offering solutions across refining, petrochemicals, chemical recycling and environmental treatment. IFPEN (IFP Energies Nouvelles) is a French public research and innovation organization with more than 80 years of history, active in energy, mobility and environmental technology. JEPLAN is a Japanese circular economy company founded in 2007 that operates commercial PET chemical recycling plants in Kawasaki and Kitakyushu and licenses its technology internationally.
