The fashion and textiles industry needs to rapidly divest from new fossil fuel extraction and its use of rPET from plastic bottles if it wants to get serious about meeting its climate targets, a new report from the Textile Exchange has urged.
Titled The Future of Synthetics, the new report is calling on brands to instead increase interest and investment into technologies that will provide viable alternatives and put a stop to bringing new fossil fuel derived materials into the supply chain.
Among its key takeaways is the report’s stance on feedstock from recycled plastic bottles, laying to bed the myth that using rPET from bottles in the production of clothing is a ‘circular practice.’
Synthetic materials have dominated the global fibre production landscape since the mid-1990s and polyester alone contributed the highest amount of GHG emissions of any single fibre in 2022. It’s estimated that 47 million tonnes of fibre was responsible for 125 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
However, the report states that a total shift away from synthetics to land-based raw materials – particularly at current production rates – could lead to an overreliance on and depletion of natural ecosystems.
It implores that the industry must, therefore, find ways to repurpose existing synthetic textile waste, while acknowledging the energy and emissions spent making these materials.
Textile Exchange now advocates for a “dual approach” of identifying and investing in alternative ways to create synthetic materials using recycled or sustainably sourced renewable feedstocks – but avoiding rPET from plastic bottles – while also reducing the volume of new materials produced overall.
It suggests that such viable alternatives include scaling textile-to-textile recycling technologies for synthetics to create a “truly closed-loop system” rather than relying on feedstocks from another industry.
“The industry must take responsibility for the textile waste it has created and must do its part to build a truly circular system into the future,” said Beth Jensen, senior director, climate and nature impact, at the Textile Exchange.
“To do this, we will need to reduce the overall volume of new materials being extracted and produced, and where synthetic materials are used, ensure that feedstocks from new fossil fuel extraction are not entering the supply chain.
“Bottle-based feedstocks for textiles and apparel and not truly circular as they are using waste from the food and beverage industry rather than the vast amounts of waste generated by our own industry. By using another industry’s waste, we are actually impeding their circularity efforts, particularly given the fact that current technology can much more easily recycle bottles into new bottles rather than bottle-based textiles into new textiles.”
The new report provides a guidance for brands looking to scale the production of preferred synthetics alongside a guide to biosynthetics – fibres that are wholly or partially derived from biobased resources. Current examples include biobased polyester and biobased nylon.
