Textiles Recycling Expo Aims to Weave a New Future of Circularity

Crisis, today, is the operating environment. Speakers described a system that is under pressure from all directions: volumes of waste are rising, collection and sorting systems are overwhelmed, and the circular economy remains more vision than reality.

Van de Kerkhof laid out the situation plainly. “There’s a huge amount of waste—record amount of waste,” he said. “There are huge challenges because if you want to take that waste, at this moment we don’t have adequate collecting and sorting technologies available. That is really the beginning of any circular model.”

His point underscored the urgency behind ReHubs’ mission: to unify actors across the value chain and scale textile-to-textile recycling. “We’re at a really critical moment in time right now. The textiles industry is in the crisis, but also as a consequence in the transition,” he said. He quoted Churchill: “Never let a good crisis go to waste. And I think that’s where we are today.”

Circularity, for van de Kerkhof, is not a theoretical concept—it’s an operational strategy. “The direction how the textile industry wants to come out of this crisis is very clear: it is towards a circular industry.”

Karla Basselier, CEO of Fedustria, Belgium’s textile and furniture federation, echoed her concerns. “Only a percentage of all textiles are currently recycled,” she noted. “And in response to that, we know that European Commission has launched a wave of new legislative initiatives [aimed] to increase textile recycling and circularity.”

Basselier warned, however, that regulation alone will not resolve the problem. “Our industry is still under pressure, is still fragile,” she said. “And this is therefore that we call upon the EU as well as on other policymakers that this legislative momentum must be matched with strong support mechanisms—mechanisms that generate viable market demands and a solid business case for recycled textiles.”

She also emphasised that this transformation cannot be achieved in isolation. “We need to share practical information, expertise, foster collaboration across the European value chain because, as you all know, circularity does not stop at national borders.”

While circularity offers a pathway forward, it also presents difficult questions—especially about economics. As Dirk Vantyghem, Director-General of EURATEX, put it, “We see companies—textile companies in Europe—who have made the investment in recycling and collection and developing more sustainable textile products… but they do not always… they do not often get rewarded for those decisions.”

The system is out of balance. But the vision, as set out by speakers, remains intact: to build a textile economy that doesn’t just recycle waste but regenerates value.

In theory, regulation is a lever of transformation. But for many in Europe’s textile sector, the current wave of EU legislation presents a double-edged sword: it promises a more sustainable future, yet it also threatens to overwhelm companies that are still recovering from economic fragility and underinvestment.

Basselier made this tension plain. “This flood of new regulation is pushing our companies to adapt at a very rapid pace,” she said. “And as Robert said, our industry is still under pressure, is still fragile. And this is therefore that we call upon the EU as well as on other policymakers that this legislative momentum must be matched with strong support mechanisms—mechanisms that generate viable market demands and a solid business case for recycled textiles.”

Among the initiatives discussed were the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the revision of the Waste Framework Directive—including Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)—and the forthcoming Circular Economy Act. While their goals are widely supported, their practical implications remain daunting.

Ettinger emphasised the scale of the challenge. “When we talk about the industry's key challenges, we have to—and we heard it already—we have to start at scale. Today only a very small fraction of textiles in Europe are recycled into new textiles.”

That fraction—estimated at around 1% by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation—is a number Ettinger acknowledged remains largely valid. “There are no real global figures yet… but I think it’s probably still relatively valid. But I would also stress that it really depends on what you consider recycling. If you consider only textile to textile, I think that’s still the number.”

This legislative gap between intention and implementation has real consequences. “We have… the lack of harmonised collection systems, we have still limited sorting capacity and we face the rise of ultra-fast fashion,” Ettinger said. “So an urgent need really to invest into textile-to-textile recycling solutions and technologies.”

Vantyghem too warned that without more supportive policy tools, companies face a bind: “Those people who make those commitments, who make those investments—as of today, the market does not reward them sufficiently. And that’s the big change that we need to bring about. Otherwise, those forward-looking entrepreneurs will be discouraged… and then it’s a lose-lose.” He argued for regulatory balance: “How do we reconcile sustainability and competitiveness?” he asked. “Because that is really what we are facing today.”

In the absence of harmonised EU-wide action, industry leaders fear a patchwork of policies may exacerbate fragmentation. Basselier noted that this is why Fedustria is supporting the Expo: “Because we strongly believe that Europe needs to come together… to unite from the raw material producers to the reuse operators to the recyclers and even to the brands.”

The policy train has left the station. Now, the question is whether the industry can keep up—and whether the rules will create momentum, or break it.

If there is one theme that cuts through the conversation around circular textiles, it is this: innovation exists—but scaling it is the hard part. At the Brussels press conference, speakers returned again and again to the gap between promising technologies and the infrastructure needed to implement them across Europe.

Van de Kerkhof highlighted the transformation already under way. “Five years ago, fibre-to-fibre polyester recycling was not yet possible, maybe at a few universities, and now you've got, you know, more than a handful of startups that are really addressing the scale-up of this,” he said. “So, you can see that innovation is really kicking in.”

He noted that the technological capabilities are no longer the primary obstacle—money and market readiness are. “Each of these innovators is coming to a level right now that they are ready for scalability,” he said. “But we’re really early stages.”

Van de Kerkhof described the capital requirements. “If I have a small pilot line of chemical recycling, you're talking about a couple of millions. But that's lab scale. The moment I go to a pilot line that is going to demonstrate the business case, with the continuity, quality and technology, the ballpark is always around €70–110 million. That's the order of magnitude. And various of these are currently being built.

The full industrial leap is far costlier. “You're talking again heavily depending on the technology… somewhere between €300 million and €600 million,” he said. “So these are big amounts.”

Despite that, van de Kerkhof believes the return is viable. “We did a technical feasibility study… with a ballpark investment of €5 billion in order to have the two and a half million recycled content. The value however generated by that is about 8 billion. So what it clearly shows is once you're at scale… there is a business case.”

But scale alone won’t solve the crisis. Ettinger warned that many recyclers and sorters can’t afford to wait for regulation to catch up. “Some are struggling currently and neither the EPR scheme nor these promised investments will help in the short term. This is something where emergency funding needs to be unlocked somehow because we probably know how textile sorting currently or traditionally has been done. It’s a manual business—very labour intensive—and investments are needed.”

Vantyghem was direct: “Time is against us,” he underlined. “How long can these companies who made the investment, who are trying to move forward—how long can they survive even financially until the market will grow? So, we need to cover that time gap that we currently have, that's for sure.”

He also cautioned against Europe's attempt to lead without a global shift. “We try to be a Green Island, but if the rest of the world is not with us, we are in big trouble,” he said. “So, I often say this EU textile strategy should become a global textile strategy.”

For all the financial and regulatory uncertainty, speakers agreed on one point: the Expo in June is not just a meeting—it is a test. A test of whether Europe can bridge its policy ambitions with practical action. Van de Kerkhof said it best: “The decisions we make today will define the future of textiles in the EU, but also globally.”