Carbios partners with apparel brands to improve product recyclability

Carbios, a company based in Clermont-Ferrand, France, that develops enzymatic solutions to break downend-of-life of plastic and textile polymers, has signed an agreement with Zurich, Switzerland-based On; Ventura, California-based Patagonia; Herzogenaurach, Germany-based Puma; and Annecy, France-based Salomon to develop solutions that will enhance the recyclability and circularity of their products.

An important element of the two-year deal, Carbios says, will be to speed up the introduction of Carbios’ biorecycling technology. Carbios and the four companies also will research how products can be recycled, develop solutions to takeback worn polyester items, including sorting and dismantling technologies, and gather data on fiber-to-fiber recycling as well as circularity models.

The challenge the four brands share is that their sustainable development goals can only partially be met by conventional recycling technologies that mostly target bottle-to-fiber recycling, Carbios says. Future regulations will require more circularity in packaging and textiles, yet the market consensus is that there will soon be a shortage of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles as they will be used for circular production in the food and beverage industry, the company says.

Carbios’ process involves recycling polyester, or PET, fibers, which are widely used in apparel, footwear and sportswear, on their own or together with other fibers. Polyester is the most important fiber for the textile industry with 52 metric tons produced, surpassing cotton at 23 metric tons, according to Carbios. The biorecycling process uses an enzyme capable of selectively extracting the polyester, recovering it to recreate a virgin fiber.

“This consortium model has proved to be very efficient based on the success of the milestones previously achieved in packaging,” says Emmanuel Ladent, chief executive officer of Carbios. “We are very pleased to partner with these prestigious brands, On, Patagonia, Puma and Salomon. Our common goal is to contribute to reducing the environmental impact of the textile industry by offering an industrial solution to recycle polyester fibers and help our partners to meet their sustainable development goals.”

“On is committed to becoming circular before the end of the decade,” says Adrianne Gilbride, senior sustainability manager at On. “Our partnership with Carbios and the other consortium members is an important step towards enabling the industry to game-changing circular technologies at scale. Fiber-to-fiber recycling is a key building block in closing the loop within the textile and footwear industry.”

Natalie Banakis, materials innovation engineer Patagonia, says, "The textile waste problem is bigger than one company or solution, and Patagonia is excited to be working in a new format to solve this problem.”

“As part of our Forever Better sustainability strategy, we aim to use 75 percent recycled polyester in our apparel and accessories by 2025,” says Howard Williams, global innovation apparel and accessories at Puma. “The partnership with Carbios and their innovative biorecycling methods offer a promising approach to reach our goals and make our industry as a whole more circular.”

Olivier Mouzin, footwear sustainability manager at Salomon, says, "Our goal in joining the consortium is to bring awareness to the end-of-life of textiles, with the ambition of establishing true circularity within the textile industry. The companies in the consortium aim to do this by discovering ways to recycle fibers from one product into another. Partnering with Carbios—a green chemistry leader offering a biorecycling process that recycles apparel and footwear materials into thread for new products—better enables us to accomplish this goal.”