KIPAS Textiles, known as Europe’s largest fully integrated textile manufacturer, has launched fibR-e, a recycling platform designed to address one of fashion’s toughest sustainability gaps, polyester recycling at meaningful scale.
Every year, the industry produces millions of tonnes of polyester garments. Only a tiny fraction less than 1 percent makes its way back into the system. Most of it ends up in landfills or incinerators, even as European regulators and consumers expect fashion brands to take responsibility for their waste.
fibR-e offers a practical path forward. It combines Meltem Kimya’s patented molecular recycling system with KIPAS’ thermomechanical process. By working together, these technologies can turn post-consumer garments including polyester-elastane blends and mixed-fibre textiles into GRS-certified rTEX Chips. KIPAS then uses these chips to produce certified filament yarns and staple fibres that can go straight into new collections.
One feature that stands out is fibR-e’s ability to remove accessories during processing. This reduces the typical bottleneck of manual sorting and makes treatment of complex garments much easier. The system also decolourises blended textiles, creating cleaner outputs. The molecular recycling step breaks polyester down to its basic components and rebuilds it without forming microplastics. This allows repeated recycling with no drop in quality.
Early findings show that producing polyester entirely from post-consumer textile waste through fibR-e can cut emissions by nearly 74 percent compared with virgin production.
“Recycling has barely scratched the surface of the polyester problem,” said Halit Gümüser, CEO of KIPAS Textiles. “With fibR-e, we can take real post-consumer waste in all its complexity and return it to the market as certified, high-quality filament yarns and staple fibres. This is how the industry moves from linear to circular at commercial scale.”
The platform was developed through a long-term partnership between KIPAS and Meltem Kimya. By combining molecular recycling knowledge with large-scale industrial capacity, fibR-e can produce performance-tested, traceable materials at a price point that brands can realistically adopt. This helps fashion companies reduce the use of virgin polyester while meeting upcoming regulatory requirements.
fibR-e marks a meaningful shift for the sector. Circular polyester has been a long-held ambition, and KIPAS’ new system brings it closer to an everyday industrial reality.
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