PUMA, in partnership with a multi-brand consortium, has unveiled the world’s first clothing piece made entirely from textile waste using CARBIOS’ cutting-edge biorecycling technology. The debut item, a plain white T-shirt, is constructed from mixed and coloured textile waste, making it a significant leap toward achieving 100% “fibre-to-fibre” recycling. CARBIOS’ revolutionary enzymatic technology disassembles polyester to its essential components, creating biorecycled polyester with quality matching that of virgin, oil-based polyester.

Aiming for 100% Recycled Polyester

Anne-Laure Descours, Chief Sourcing Officer at PUMA, emphasised that the ultimate goal is for all of PUMA’s polyester to derive from textile waste. She noted that the announcement is a significant step toward a fully circular industry model. Descours further highlighted that scaling up CARBIOS’ technology would amplify the positive environmental impact and set a new industry benchmark for fibre-to-fibre recycling.

Paving the Way for a Circular Economy

The consortium’s mission is to shift the textile industry toward a circular economy model by industrialising CARBIOS’ enzymatic depolymerisation process. This innovation replaces petroleum-based materials with textile waste, transforming discarded textiles into raw materials for new products. This process is expected to decrease landfill and incineration waste and drastically lower carbon emissions by creating a continuous recycling loop.

CARBIOS CEO Lauds Consortium Effort in Achieving Technological Feat

CARBIOS CEO Emmanuel Ladent commented that, while the biorecycled T-shirt may look unremarkable, the technology behind it is revolutionary. He credited the consortium’s collaboration with helping CARBIOS overcome substantial technical challenges to create the world’s first biorecycled T-shirt. Ladent sees this achievement as a pivotal point in sustainable textile production.

Industry Landscape and Future Aspirations

Currently, recycled polyester largely originates from PET bottles, while only a minuscule 1% of textile fibres are repurposed into new fibres. This fibre-to-fibre recycling project marks a key milestone for the consortium’s ultimate goal of demonstrating closed-loop recycling on an industrial scale. The industry’s reliance on biorecycled textiles could soon expand as the consortium seeks to scale the process, potentially shifting global textile practices toward more sustainable methods.

  Anne-Laure Descours, CARBIOS, Emmanuel Ladent, Puma