A new project has set out to bring recycled cotton to commercial scale by physically validating yarns that are commercially available against the quality specifications brands set. Fashion for Good has announced the Cotton Reloop Matrix Project wherein recyclers and brands test in isolation and work from separate data sets, with no shared reference comparison to close the gap between them.
- A Quality Matrix shows where recycled cotton is ready for commercial use and where targeted innovation can extend its reach.
- Ten demonstrator fabrics will be produced and five quality augmentation trials run in real production conditions, and the results will form a Trade-off Analysis.
- Best practices from the trials will be captured in a universal, open-source spinning Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), designed to support consistent manufacturing across global supply chains.
- An industry-facing report, the Roadmap for Cotton Circularity, closes the project and sets out the data infrastructure needed to scale recycled cotton adoption across product categories and regions.
HOW THE PROJECT WORKS: With its launch in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the Cotton Reloop Matrix Project has set up two parallel tracks. Fashion for Good maps what recyclers can produce today against what brands need across knit and woven categories. Selected recyclers, in collaboration with Fashion for Good's partners, run the second track, described in the announcement as the move from the map to the mill.
- Interloop takes part as the manufacturing partner, while Arvind and Shahi are advisory to the project, alongside BESTSELLER, C&A and Reformation.
- Uster, the ecosystem partner, contributes the spinning and yarn-testing expertise used in the physical validation phase of the project.
THE LIMITS OF SHREDDING: Cotton accounts for 19% of global fibre production and is a core part of the material mix. Alternative recycling pathways can use cotton-rich textile waste as feedstock but do not make a cotton output, which leaves mechanical recycling a crucial pathway to turn waste into recycled cotton fabrics and yarns. Shredding in that process shortens and weakens the fibres.
- Input that does not survive ends up as short fibres and processing waste, outside the usable material that can be respun.
- Because the surviving fibres come out of shredding shortened, spinners can only blend a limited share of them back into new yarn.
- The cotton share cited for fibre production comes from Textile Exchange's Materials Market Report 2025, published on 18 September 2025.
- A 2025 paper in the Journal of Natural Fibers, on recycling post-consumer cotton denim waste, is the basis the announcement cited for the limits on fibre survival and blending.
HOW BRANDS JUDGE RECYCLED COTTON: Integrating a meaningful percentage of recycled cotton remains complex for brands navigating trade-offs around quality and price, while recyclers have available capacities. Brands often evaluate recycled blends against 100% virgin cotton standards, which makes for a challenging comparison. To help unlock greater market adoption, Fashion for Good has called for the industry to move its focus away from those standards.
- The alternative Fashion for Good set out is to match the realistic performance profile of recycled fibres to appropriate product applications.
- Where higher performance is required, the alternative also uses targeted quality augmentation pathways, which the project's mill trials will test.
WHAT THEY SAID
Recycled cotton has been talked about as a scale-ready solution for years, but the industry has been working from fragmented data and siloed testing. This project is about closing that gap with hard evidence. By plotting real recycler capabilities against real brand quality targets, and by co-developing the operational standards to support them, we can move recycled cotton from a case-by-case experiment to a category the industry can actually plan around.
— Katrin Ley
Managing Director
Fashion for Good
Recycled cotton isn't new to us: it's a fiber we've worked with for years. What's been limiting is the ability to scale to higher blend percentages without compromising fabric quality or hand-feel. What this project offers is a shared reference point where brands and recyclers work from the same evidence. We hope this opens the door to greater scalability and uptake over time.
— Nikki Player
Senior Director of Raw Materials
Reformation
