Advancing textile recycling through due diligence support
Customer challenge
The amount of textile waste generated in the EU increased by 81% from 6.95 million tonnes per year in 2020 to 12.6 million tonnes per year in 2024 .
Despite this increase only 1% of textile waste is recycled into new textiles globally with a large proportion of textile waste ending up in mixed municipal solid waste (black bin) collections with energy recovery and landfilling remaining the most common disposal pathways.
Improving Europe’s rate of textile recycling is vital for the EU’s push towards the circular economy. The EU waste framework directive mandates all member states employ a separate textile collection service from 2025 and set targets for all EU member states to introduce an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme to increase the recovery rate of textiles by 2027.
Despite these upcoming improvements to Europe’s textile waste recovery rate, textiles are still a challenging material to recycle. This is due to their variable composition, contamination from dyes or coatings and lack of available recycling facilities. One potential solution to this challenge is the implementation of chemical recycling to recycle textiles.
Chemical recycling is an umbrella term covering various processes utilising chemical reactions to convert wastes into useful products such as pyrolysis, gasification, dissolution and depolymerisation.
Chemical recycling differentiates itself from traditional mechanical recycling, presenting a comparatively lower carbon footprint and the ability to recycle otherwise difficult to handle waste streams such as mixed or dyed textiles.
However, despite the potential benefits of chemical recycling, it faces challenges such as high investment cost and comparatively low use in industry compared to traditional mechanical recycling. As such, research and development into ways to implement chemical recycling, in an economical way, is of paramount importance to attract investors.
GR3N, based near Lugano in Switzerland, have developed a patented Microwave Assisted Depolymerisation Reactor (MADE) which is a chemical recycling technology capable of converting both textile and plastic waste (PET) into the precursor materials which can be converted into recycled plastic pellets.
GR3N have over 14 years’ experience developing this technology. They have provided proof of concept with their DEMETO pilot plant, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme , and their MADE demonstrator facility, partially funded by the Swiss government. These facilities have enabled GR3N to perform rigorous tests on the depolymerisation reactor, identify operational issues and determine solutions.
GR3N is currently supporting Intesca Industrial develop the MODUS plant in Lliria, Spain which will be the first commercial scale plant using microwave assisted depolymerisation of textiles. The project has been selected for funding by the Innovation Fund program.
Ricardo solution
In order to support with this process, Ricardo utilised our extensive experience in chemical recycling and waste technology evaluation to perform a technical due-diligence study on their technology.
Ricardo’s support included:
- A site visit to GR3N’s MADE demonstrator plant
- An in-depth analysis of the technology benefits and risks associated with GR3N’s technology
- Making use of the local regional knowledge of the Ricardo team to perform an analysis of local sources of feedstock for the MODUS plant in Iberic peninsula.
- A summary of the potential for future deployment in the EU region
- Analysis of the environmental impact and life cycle assessment (LCA) of the proposed technology
- Benchmarking the technology against other similar alternative technologies currently on the market.
The Ricardo team also participated in a Q&A meeting with one of GR3N’s investors and employed our stakeholder management expertise to provide further clarification on the findings of the due diligence study.
Customer benefit
Ricardo’s study determined that GR3N’s technology was promising and offered a number of benefits which included:
- Short reaction time compared to similar technologies
- High product yield and purity
- Proven ability to process both textile and plastic feedstocks
- The possibility to recover other materials (Polyolefins, Cotton)
- The products produced by their process can easily be polymerised into recycled plastics via the commonly employed industry standard method of polymerisation
- A high technology readiness level (TRL) of 8 and operational demonstrator plant reduces some of the risks associated with scale up to a commercial scale facility.
Ricardo also identified potential risks that the MADE technology may need to overcome including:
- Challenges upgrading from batch operation at the demonstrator plant to continuous operation at future commercial facilities such as MODUS
- The ability of the microwaves to adequately penetrate the feed material in a larger commercial scale reactor
- The effect of some soluble and non-soluble contaminants in textile waste are unknown at this point, and this could pose a risk in future operations.
GR3N are actively pursuing mitigations to the risks identified by Ricardo. As such, GR3N’s MADE chemical recycling technology could deliver a viable route for the recycling of textile waste within Europe and support Europe’s journey towards the circular economy.
GR3N’s MADE technology is just an example of the wider role chemical recycling will play in improving waste management in Europe. Chemical recycling can enable the recovery of value from waste streams that would otherwise be sent halfway around the world to southeast Asian countries for disposal, as is currently the case.
The use of chemical recycling derived recycled polymers and fuels will also reduce Europe’s reliance on imported fuels and virgin polymers produced from fossil fuel feedstocks. Reducing the EU’s reliance on imported materials will prove increasingly important in the current geopolitical climate.
This project was an excellent example of the value Ricardo’s multidisciplinary teams including waste, circular economy, chemical and LCA experts can bring to our clients. Ricardo’s technical due diligence provided the client with critical validation of their MADE chemical recycling technology, helping to build investor confidence and support the transition from pilot to commercial scale. Ricardo’s insights into feedstock availability, environmental impact, and operational risks have enabled GR3N to strengthen their strategy and accelerate deployment of their technology.