After participating and reading the final report “Textile-to-Textile circularity Study. Advancing textile circularity |Europe’s textile waste surge: The case for system-level scale-up” by Boston Consulting Group and Rehubs, we wanted to get into detail in some insights and recommendations.
Europe’s growing textile waste challenge: why system-level infrastructure will define circularity
Europe is entering a new phase in textile circularity. Increasing separate collection targets, regulatory pressure and shifting global reuse dynamics are rapidly increasing the volumes of post-consumer textile waste that must be structurally managed within the region.
System-level analyses of textile-to-textile circularity in Europe, including the ReHubs x BCG study, highlight the scale of the challenge. Cotton and polyester — the dominant fibre types in apparel consumption — represent the largest opportunity for circular material loops, but also the greatest operational complexity when recovered from post-consumer garments.
Historically, textile waste management has relied heavily on manual sorting for reuse markets and export flows. While this model has extended garment lifetimes for decades, it is increasingly constrained by saturation in destination markets, rising logistics costs and tightening quality requirements. As a result, larger fractions of textile waste must now be structurally prepared for recycling or valorised through new industrial pathways.
This transition requires more than isolated recycling technologies.
It requires system-level infrastructure capable of managing heterogeneity at scale.
The bottleneck of circularity: material preparation and sorting capacity
One of the key insights emerging from recent industry studies is that the viability of textile-to-textile recycling is not primarily limited by recycling technologies themselves, but by upstream material preparation.
Post-consumer textile waste is inherently complex. Garments contain diverse fibre blends, colour variations, trims, fillings and construction techniques that significantly affect downstream processing efficiency. Without adequate sorting and preparation, recycling yields can be inconsistent, processing costs increase and achievable recycled content remains limited.
Scaling circularity therefore requires a step change in industrial sorting capacity. This includes:
- classification by fibre composition
- optimisation of colour streams
- removal of non-textile components
- aggregation of homogeneous recycling-ready fractions
- coordination of logistics and material flows
Developing these capabilities enables the creation of predictable secondary raw material streams — a prerequisite for both mechanical and chemical recycling pathways to reach industrial scale.
The economics of textile-to-textile circularity
The ReHubs x BCG analysis also highlights that achieving viable textile-to-textile circularity depends on multiple interacting levers across the value chain.
Break-even conditions are influenced by:
- collection efficiency and capture rates
- sorting productivity and automation levels
- fibre recovery yields
- downstream demand for recycled materials
- policy incentives and EPR design
- transport and aggregation logistics
Circularity must therefore be understood as an ecosystem rather than a single technological solution. Industrial actors need to collaborate to reduce system costs, stabilise material quality and create market pull for recycled fibres, yarns and fabrics.
Activating Europe’s existing textile industry
Scaling textile circularity in Europe will ultimately depend on the ability to connect waste preparation with existing industrial textile capacity.
System-level studies consistently highlight that Europe does not start from zero. The continent still hosts significant spinning, weaving and garment manufacturing capabilities that can integrate recycled fibres into commercial production, provided that material streams are sufficiently stabilised upstream.
This makes industrial sorting and preparation a strategic enabler of circular manufacturing. When post-consumer textile waste is classified by fibre composition and colour, and when non-textile elements are removed at scale, recycling outputs become compatible with mainstream spinning and fabric engineering processes.
At Coleo, circularity is approached as an industrial value chain rather than a standalone recycling step. By combining textile waste sorting infrastructure with fibre processing, spinning and weaving capabilities, it becomes possible to transform heterogeneous post-consumer garments into scalable textile inputs.
In this sense, the transition towards circular textiles in Europe is not about creating a new industry.
It is about growing and adapting the one that already exists.
