"There is a market being created to finally develop the industrial recycling of textile waste," the company's director-general, Carbios, Emmanuel Ladent, told AFP. "We can no longer allow open dumps to accumulate where used clothes from industrialized countries, such as the Atacama desert in South America, are piled up," he added during the presentation in Clermont-Ferrand.
"We bring in used T-shirts, ski jackets or other sportswear, shredd machine, remove buttons or closures [zipper] textile waste and produce pieces of 1 to 2 square centimeters, ready to be recycled with our enzymatic process to remanufacture new textile fibers," explained the leader of this French company.
The start-up has invested about one million euros to design, develop and patent this unique demonstration machine, which will be used to validate the textile recycling process, "before moving to industrial scale in early 2025, probably in eastern France," according to Ladent.
The demonstrator is capable of processing 300 kg of clothing per hour.
On Monday, French Industry Minister Roland Lescure kicked off the site of a former Michelin factory in Clermont-Ferrand, within the grounds of a new "Center for Sustainable Materials".
Carbios will recycle "textiles that we now know are insufficiently recycled. We have +fast fashion+, +ultra fast fashion+ which from my point of view is far too +fast+ and not enough +fashion+, so we have to go towards textiles made in France, recycled in France," said the minister.
"Polyester textile accounts for two-thirds of the world's PET plastic production," Ladent said to show the huge potential for innovation.
Carbios has received support from Sportwear brands such as Salomon, On Running or Puma, eager to create a circular loop to be able to reuse recycled fibers.
By 2030, the European Union intends to set "a minimum content of recycled fibres in the composition of textiles", according to the Commission's website.
© 2023 AFP