Sorted textiles: Tomra says a circular value chain for textiles is now emerging. Image: Tomra
Textile recycling needs more than just tech
Decisive policy action is supporting development of the textile recycling market. Louisa Hoyes at Tomra Recycling writes that the key challenge now is to achieve scale
The textile industry is at a pivotal point due to rapidly intensifying global regulations. This movement is led by key developments like the new European Union Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, which ensures producers are financially responsible for the full lifecycle of textiles, and France’s new Ultra-Fast Fashion Bill, which introduces an escalating eco-tax of up to €10 per item and mandates eco-score labeling. These European measures, often viewed by countries like the US and China as setting the pace, highlight the sheer volume of textile waste – millions of tons annually – and the new reality of the mandatory EU separate textile collection, which came into effect on January 1, 2025. The global textile recycling market faces an immense challenge: EU collection is now enforced and the financial weight of EPR is looming, yet the industry remains markedly immature compared to established streams like plastic or paper. Today, less than 1% of annual textile waste is recycled into new
30 Textiles Loop • Summer 2026 products without being downgraded(1) .
However, industry analysis suggests that scaling fibre-to-fibre recycling could boost the global recycling rate to over 30%, unlocking a raw material value exceeding $50bn(2)
. This shift is expected to create a
profitable, self-standing industry, with the European recycling value chain alone estimated to generate an annual profit pool of up to €2.2bn by 2030(3)
.
From technical feasibility to industrial viability Tomra recognized this immense hurdle early and over the past decade has been dedicating resources to textiles develop- ment. The real priority is now accelerating the synchronization and industrial scaling of this complex value chain, a process where Tomra’s decades of expertise from other established material streams provide a significant head start. We are no longer debating feasibility; we are addressing industrial viability.
The core challenge in textile recycling is
not if we can sort, but how fast and how purely we can recover materials for fibre-to-fibre recycling. Textiles present a vast degree of heterogeneity: garments are composed of countless complex blends, multiple fabric layers, dyes and non-textile components such as zips and buttons. Our solution for all complex sorting tasks (including whole, cut or shredded garments) is the AutoSort unit. Its core strength is its multifunctionality, providing unmatched versatility in both material handling and sensor integration across various applications. The unit employs a combination of sensors: NIR (near-infrared for fibre composition), VIS (visible spectros- copy for colour) and EM (electromagnetic for metal detection). This flexible and integrated sensor combination ensures the highest purity and enables optimal downstream process- es for every feedstock. To maximize purity before shredding post-consumer clothing, we find it most efficient to sort the whole articles first prior to shredding.
The A/B sorting concept Tomra’s A/B sorting concept – refined over more than three decades across industrial recycling streams like plastics and metals
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