Making fiber-to-fiber recycling commercially viable for the textile industry
As the textile industry accelerates its transition toward circularity, advanced recycling technologies are emerging as a critical solution to one of its biggest challenges – recovering value from blended textile waste. Worn Again Technologies is among the companies working to make fiber-to-fiber recycling commercially viable by developing a chemical recycling process that separates polyester and cotton from post-consumer textiles and transforms them into new raw materials. In this interview, Toby Moss, Chief Commercial Officer of Worn Again Technologies, discusses the company’s recycling technology, commercialization progress, the investment and policy support needed to scale circular recycling, Bangladesh’s role in a future circular supply chain, and how evolving regulations could reshape the global textile and fashion industry over the coming decade.
TexSPACE Today: Could you briefly introduce Worn Again Technologies and explain it’s mission and recycling technology?
Toby Moss: Worn Again Technologies is a UK-based company with a pilot recycling facility in Switzerland. Our mission is to eliminate textile waste through simple but ambitious true fiber-to-fiber recycling. Our focus is on post-consumer textile waste, especially polycotton fabrics. This represents a significant portion of global textile waste but is extremely difficult to recycle using conventional methods.
We have developed an advanced chemical recycling technology that can process mixed textile waste containing both polyester and cotton. Rather than treating this mixed fabric as waste, our technology separates it into two valuable raw materials. The polyester is recovered as a high-quality resin, which can be melted down and spun into new polyester fibers. On the other hand, the cotton is converted into purified cellulose, which is then processed into lyocell fibers using wet spinning technology.
Our aim is to replace fossil-based and farm-produced raw materials with recycled materials derived from textile waste, which will help create a truly circular textile industry.
TexSPACE Today: What technical challenges did your company face while developing this technology?
Toby Moss: Conventional recycling technologies face significant challenges when it comes to blended fabrics. While mechanical recycling methods can tolerate small amounts of contamination, they cannot efficiently process fabrics with high levels of both polyester and cotton (such as a typical 50:50 polycotton blend). For this reason, we had to resort to chemical recycling methods.
The main technical challenge is to recover both fibers without damaging either one. Many recycling technologies successfully extract one component but destroy the second component during the process, making it unsuitable for reuse. Our team has worked for years to improve the chemical process so that both polyester and cellulose can maintain equivalent or better quality after recycling.
Another challenge was the management of the chemicals. Our goal was to keep the chemicals within the recycling plant, rather than ending up in the recycled product or waste stream.
To achieve this, we have invested heavily in developing advanced solvent recovery and separation technologies, which allow the chemicals to be recovered, purified and reused repeatedly. This not only improves environmental performance but also supports long-term economic sustainability.
TexSPACE Today: What kind of structural changes are needed to make circular textile recycling a global standard, without exception?
Toby Moss: Many advanced textile recycling companies, including ours, are still operating at the experimental or demonstration stage. Only a handful of chemical recycling technologies around the world have reached the demonstration stage at the industrial level.
Large investments are needed to scale up these technologies. Without sufficient investment, recycling plants cannot scale up to industrial capacity, and without industrial capacity, production costs are significantly higher than for virgin or new raw materials. The industry needs to be given an initial “push” through investment, which will help recycling companies scale up their infrastructure. Once production volumes increase, processing costs will naturally decrease, making recycled materials economically competitive.
There is another important point. Virgin polyester has benefited from almost 70 years of industrial optimization. Many polyester production plants are directly connected to oil refineries, which makes virgin polyester production very cheap.
At the same time, these fossil-based systems often do not consider their environmental impact. While policies such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) are starting to address carbon emissions, the global environmental pricing system is still immature. Building a truly circular textile economy requires sufficient investment in the rapid expansion of recycling technologies and the proper consideration of the environmental costs of producing fossil-based raw materials. Only then can recycled raw materials compete fairly in the global market.
TexSPACE Today: How can Worn Again Technologies contribute to Bangladesh’s transition toward a circular textile economy?
Toby Moss: Our current focus is on recycling post-consumer textile waste, which is generated mainly in consumer markets. We believe there is both a moral responsibility and an economic advantage for countries that generate post-consumer textile waste to recycle it where it is produced. Processing waste close to its source reduces transportation impacts while creating higher-value recycled raw materials before shipment.
Bangladesh occupies a different but equally important position in the textile value chain. As one of the world’s largest garment manufacturing hubs, Bangladesh imports enormous quantities of textile raw materials.
In the future, recycled polyester and recycled cellulose produced in consumer regions could be exported to Bangladesh, where manufacturers can use these sustainable raw materials to produce garments for global brands. This creates a circular supply chain in which waste generated by consumers becomes raw material for manufacturing.
TexSPACE Today: How do you envision advanced textile recycling transforming the fashion industry over the next 10–15 years?
Toby Moss: Worn Again Technologies is primarily focused on Europe because we believe Europe is currently developing the world’s most advanced regulatory framework for textile circularity.
New European regulations encouraging greater recycled content in textiles could become a major turning point for the global fashion industry. Europe is one of the world’s largest consumers of apparel and home textiles. If these regulations are implemented effectively, they will influence supply chains worldwide and reshape how textile materials move from waste collection to finished products. Our long-term vision is simple.
Instead of relying on raw materials sourced from fossil fuels or agriculture, we want future textiles to be manufactured from recycled textile waste. Rather than sending millions of tons of textiles to landfills or incineration, these valuable materials should remain in continuous circulation.
Ultimately, our goal is to reach a future where recycled fibers become the industry norm rather than a special sustainability claim. The greatest success will come when consumers no longer notice labels saying “made from recycled materials” because every textile product will naturally be produced from recycled resources.