Horizon Textile Recycling: Mixed-Fibre Waste
Funds demonstrations that separate poly-blend garments and home fabrics so European recyclers can turn them into new fibre, up to €6M per project.
Textiles are one of the EU's biggest material and water users, and one of its bigger climate problems: the fourth-highest category for raw material and water use, the fifth for greenhouse gas emissions, and a major source of microplastic pollution. Most of that comes from clothes and home textiles that mix fibres together — polyester and cotton woven into the same garment — which is exactly what m…
Developing and demonstrating (TRL 6-8) recycling technology for post-consumer textile waste made of blended fibres — polycotton and other combinations of synthetic, semi-synthetic and natural materials, from both apparel and home textiles. Funded work spans effective collection and sorting; disassembling complex products by separating multi-material layers and fibre blends and removing non-textile components, coatings or contaminants; fibre-to-fibre recycling itself; and determining how many recycling cycles a fibre can undergo before an alternative use, rather than landfill or incineration, has to take over. Recycling processes must also remove persistent chemicals such as PFAS ('forever chemicals') without releasing new hazardous chemicals or microplastics, validated with lifecycle assessment and costing (LCA/LCC) and built around the EU's Safe and Sustainable by Design approach.
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