Recover, Sysav partners to scale post-consumer waste recycling

Recover™, a leading manufacturer of recovered cotton fiber, has announced a new partnership with textile sorting business Sysav in an effort to address the rising problem of textile waste and expedite circularity in the textiles sector.

As part of the deal, Sysav will begin supplying Recover™ with 95% cotton post-consumer waste (PCW) in 2022, with rising volumes projected in the following years. It is the next stage in the production of high-quality garments and other textile items utilizing Recover™ recovered fibers from post-consumer waste, and it is the outcome of growing cooperation between the two firms that began in 2020. (PCW).

The arrangement is part of Recover’s goal to engage in long-term purchasing contracts throughout the world in order to secure garbage supplies and will aid in the expansion of its post-consumer waste recycling. The firm has set an ambitious goal of having PCW account for more than 40% of its inputs by 2025, which would equate to 85.000 tons of worn clothing.

Helene Smits, Chief Sustainability Officer at Recover™, said that recycling post-consumer garments at scale and with high quality is the holy grail and the challenge to solve if they want to move to a circular textiles industry. Sorting post-consumer textiles on composition and color at scale is an essential enabler to achieve that. It has been a joy working with Sysav over the last year to assist refine their technology and processes based on our requirements, and we are excited to now take the first step toward meeting the lofty PCW recycling objectives established by Recover™.

Siptex by Sysav is the world’s first large-scale facility capable of autonomously sorting textiles based on composition and color while delivering a quality-assured result. Its solution fills a critical gap in the textile value chain between collection and high-quality textile recycling, assisting in overcoming the barrier that post-consumer waste variance and quality discrepancies bring when compared to homogenous virgin raw material. By collaborating, the two firms want to come one step closer to closing the fashion loop while maintaining the highest quality and environmental requirements.

Stefan Poldrugac, Business Developer at Sysav, said that with the ReFab® products, they’re in the process of setting a new industry standard for post-consumer textiles. The collaboration with high-quality recycler Recover™ is a significant step forward in this attempt. Their reciprocal exchange of technological experience demonstrates that tight relationships across the textile value chain are critical in transforming the textile waste problem into circular flows of sustainable raw materials.