Article / Report

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Producing textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

Using materials that can be easily reused or recycled after use

Reusable, recyclable materials and inputs

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within other industries

Open loop upcycling

Make collected and sorted recyclables available for use by citizens, small businesses up to large scale industrial processes. 

Use recyclables

Solutions at all stages of the textiles value chain.

Zero Waste Textiles

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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   ReBlend is een sociale onderneming, met als missie het bewustzijn over de ecologische impact van de textielindustrie te vergroten en inspiratie te geven over het gebruik van hernieuwbare grondstoffen. Samen met andere ontwerpers, gebruikers, makers en visionairs creëert ReBlend een nieuw ecosysteem, een volledig transparante en eerlijke keten voor circulair textiel, om zo positieve impact te realiseren.Welcome to ReBlend!                                                     
 
 
 

       

Reblend

ReBlend is a Dutch startup that creates high end fashion and interior textile designs with a minimal ecological footprint. The company aims for 100% recycled yarn with no additional water use, no new raw materials, no waste, no added chemicals and production in Western Europe. After three years of applying research the result was a 100% recycled yarn composed of 70% blended textile waste and 30% recycled PET. Post-consumer non wearable textiles were collected from consumers and sorted by hand based on their color and material combinations. The textiles were then shredded and a supplement of recycled polyester from PET bottles is added for improved strength prior to spinning the new yarn. Read more at:

Recycling post-consumer waste and PET bottles into yarn

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This collection has been built by a community of passionate researchers, students, and industry professionals as part of <a href="https://worldcirculartextilesday.com/" target="_blank">World Circular Textiles Day</a> (WCTD). 


World Circular Textiles Day takes place every year on 8th October. Our vision is to galvanise the collective ambitions and goals of people, organisations and businesses to reach a fully circular textiles world by 2050. Our mission is to provide a framework for circularity stakeholders to develop and deliver a collaborative, evolving roadmap and to chart circularity’s momentum annually from the 8th of October until 2050.

What does fully circular by 2050 mean?
- Shared textile resources, in the form of products and raw materials, are kept in **continual circulation**.
- Virgin resources are **replaced with circular materials**.
- Dignity, equity, and equality for the **people** involved in all parts of the circular value chain.

We need to know where we stand today to chart how to get to 100% Circularity by 2050. What circular activity is currently happening in the textiles and apparel industry, and where in the world is it happening? The WCTD Collection aims to answer this question by building the world’s largest digital library of circular textiles case studies. 

World Circular Textiles Day is proud to be supported by our 2022-23 Circular Hero Partners:
[Lenzing](https://www.lenzing.com/), [Texaid](https://retailsolutions.texaid.com/), [Bank & Vogue](https://www.bankvogue.com/), [Usha yarns limited](https://ushayarns.com/), [The Conduit](https://www.theconduit.com/), and [Asia Pacific Rayon](https://www.aprayon.com/en/)

## Want to contribute to the WCTD Collection? Sign up and add your circular textiles activities.

World Circular Textiles Day

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Business case

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Using waste materials that have been processed and recycled to produce new products within the same industry

Using closed loop recycled materials

VISION:
Products and services are designed for multiple use and material value retention, with maximum positive impact.

DETAIL: 
Imagine a time when…products flow via optimal collection and distribution streams into reusable and repairable product platforms. Reuse and access models are dominant, and products are designed for multiple recirculation before biodegrading (if designed to do so), or being broken down into reusable raw materials for production. People only consume what they need. Production and consumption wastes have been fully eliminated and multifunctional, season-less and timeless fashions are the norm, yet still fulfil our human need for expression and creativity without constraint. All business models, organisations, governments and citizens play a role in maintaining a healthy, functioning circular ecosystem.

Products and Services

It is 2050.  Full systems change has taken place. This wouldn’t have been possible without the immediate action and radical steps taken from 2020 onwards. Many targets had to be identified in the early 2020s and achieved by 2030 to ensure that the 2050 goal happened in full. A sense of urgency, turbo stakeholder collaboration, supportive government regulation and clear, data driven targets enabled the mindsets and systems change needed to transform to a fully circular textiles ecosystem.

A circular economics model underpins what we have created. It reflects and supports a living organism made up of makers, users and restorers, interacting across vibrant and interconnected networks. Checks and balances, alongside transparency and accountability, ensure a healthy system. Financial, environmental, and social metrics have the purpose of serving communities and the planet. There is shared ownership of profit and loss – across all three metrics – throughout the value chain.

This is what we’ve achieved over the last 30 years:

WCTD Themes

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 All our post-consumer textiles are collected and sorted, by rewearables and recyclables, (roughly) by composition and by color. Then the textiles are stripped from non-recyclable pieces such as zippers and buttons. The waste materials from this process (~17% of the total volume) are processed according to environmental regulation. The cleaned textiles are then cut and pulled into strings of fibre.
The yarn is spun by the Spanish firm Recover, trusted worldwide because of their long history in recycling and because they are third party certified for highest labor and environmental standards. These fibres are mixed in a huge room  with recycled PET from bottles and are carded, spun and twisted into 20/2 Nm yarn for the production of new textiles (10-15 % waste in recycling and spinning process).
By mixing the  post-consumer textiles sorted by color, 80 % of the dyeing process that would be necessary otherwise with virgin raw materials can be avoided. And it is so cool, any color of the Pantone color range can be made.
Finally the yarns are transported to weavers and knitters  to produce different types of textile products. NB. The yarn is certified GRS, global compact and Oeko-tex 100. Since Oeko-tex does not make a difference between post industrial and post consumer textiles the yarn has been additionally tested ( ph, azo dyes and formaldehyde). 

           ReBlend is een sociale onderneming met als missie het bewustzijn over de ecologische impact van de textielindustrie te vergroten en te inspireren tot het gebruik van circulair textiel. Om een oplossing te bieden in het ‘nu’ ontwikkelt ReBlend closed textile loops waarin textiel producten gemaakt worden van end-of-life textiel wat anders verbrand wordt of laagwaardig verdwijnt. Ze vormen een positief alternatief voor de bewuste consument en organisatie ter vervanging van reguliere producten. Samen met ontwerpers, gebruikers, makers en visionairs bouwt ReBlend aan een nieuw ecosysteem, een volledig transparante en eerlijke keten voor circulair textiel, om zo positieve impact te realiseren.
   
 
 
 

                                                
                                                
 

       

           In close cooperation with Recover we have made a yarn containing 70% old no longer wearable garments that otherwise would have gone to incineraton! This yarn is a combination of the ReBlend focus to create possibilities to keep post consumer blended cotton waste in the loop and the knowledge & expertise of the Recover Upcycled textile system to recycle pre-consumer cutting waste. Below a detailed description of the yarn composition:     Anthracite grey   70% from sorted multi color garments. 30% black rPET     Lavender blue   50% sorted jeans, 20% sorted white garments.30% colored rPET     Ivory white   70% white sorted garment. 10% colorless rPET, 20% colored rPET     Oro/ gold   40% sorted white garments, 30% yellow/orange cutting waste. (garments will be sorted on yellow/orange next time). 30% colored rPET"       NB. Coloring of rPET with minimal amount of Oeko-tex certified coloring.   
Composition of the sourced garments:    White sorted garments   87,5% cotton   10,2% polyester   2,2% others     Multi color garments   85,9% cotton   10,2% polyester   3,8% others     Denim   86,4% cotton   9,4% polyester   4,2% others   
This gives the following new composition:       Recycled cotton   Recycled polyester   Recycled PET   Others      Antracite grey   60   7   30   3     Bruma blue   60   7   30   3     Ivory white   61   7   30   2     Oro gold   65   4   30   1   

 

           

Netherlands

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ReBlend is a company that develops textiles and textile products from post-consumer textiles that otherwise would end up in incineration. In collaboration with waste collectors, producers, designers, makers, and visionaries, ReBlend organises a full supply chain to accelerate a new ecosystem for circular textiles, offering services ranging from the development of innovative textiles, circular clothing, and accessories, to cooperation in the co-creation processes and consultancy support in order to accelerate the transition to circular textiles. ReBlend fabrics, made in partnership with Recover, Raymakers, Enschede Textielstad, and Italdenim.It is also collaborating with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the Afrikamuseum in Berg en Dal, and the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden (NL) to produce colourful shawls made of 70% textile waste and 30% recycled PET.