Circularity

The United States generates 17 million tonnes of textile waste annually, and the policy frameworks designed to address it are arriving faster than the infrastructure built to support them. California's SB 707 requires textile stewardship plans to be operational by 2030, yet the recovery network it depends on remains anchored in international reuse trade that the law was not designed to protect—and may inadvertently disrupt.

California’s attempt to build a large-scale textile recovery system is unfolding with limited precedents and incomplete data. Julie Cerenzia, Director at Cascadia Consulting, explains how the modelling behind the SB 707 debate draws on international comparisons, industry assumptions and evolving market realities to estimate the environmental and economic potential of diverting textile waste.

Textile waste in the United States remains largely invisible within municipal systems, even as millions of tonnes of clothing are discarded every year. Mattias Wallander, CEO of USAgain, argues that the challenge is not technological but structural, rooted in fragmented local regulation, constrained collection networks and the economics of scaling recovery infrastructure.

Each year, Californians discard approximately 1.2 million tonnes of textiles, costing local governments an estimated $99 million in landfill fees. A new state law, SB 707, shifts that cost directly to producers through a mandatory extended producer responsibility framework—the first of its kind for apparel in the United States. Research from USAgain and Cascadia Consulting Group examines what it will take to make the system function.

The economic case for textile recycling in India is no longer speculative. With a market projected to reach $3.5 billion by 2030 and the potential to create nearly one lakh green jobs, discarded fabric is increasingly being treated as recoverable capital. But a new government-commissioned report reveals that the systems required to actually capture that value remain underdeveloped, informal, and unevenly distributed across the country.

Fashion for Good has launched Stretching Circularity, a collaborative project focused on accelerating adoption of bio-based and recycled elastane alternatives compatible with circular textile systems. Through pilot-scale validation and demonstrator garments, the initiative aims to address elastane’s role as a recycling contaminant and generate comparable data on performance, impact and scalability.

Finnish researchers and industry partners are developing a deposit-return collection machine that uses digital product passport data and AI-based imaging to sort used garments for resale or recycling. The TexMat system aims to simplify clothing returns for consumers, improve business profitability for reuse operators, and support higher textile collection and resale rates across Europe.

The economics of reuse are under strain as ultra-fast fashion floods markets with garments never designed to last. In this environment, circular systems are absorbing rising costs without corresponding value. Steven Bethell, Founder of Bank & Vogue and Beyond Retro, outlines how low-quality imports are destabilising charities, recycling infrastructure, and material integrity across the secondhand ecosystem.

Growing scrutiny of textile waste is exposing a technical reality: recyclers remain limited by trim heterogeneity, variable feedstock quality and labour-intensive preprocessing. From this vantage point, Eileen Mockus, COO at Accelerating Circularity, outlines how these structural barriers influence both early-stage pilots and industrial recycling lines. Her analysis points to the need for standardised specifications and coordinated investment to improve outcomes.