Carbios is turning hard-to-recycle textile waste into high-quality recycled polyester T-shirts, bringing the concept of “waste to wear” from innovation to industrial-scale production in Europe.
The achievement, announced by Carbios, was delivered in collaboration with Fiber-to-Fiber Consortium members Patagonia, PUMA and Salomon, alongside industrial partners spanning the European textile value chain.
The company said the project demonstrates that its biorecycling technology can convert difficult waste streams into recycled polyester capable of meeting the performance requirements of industrial textile production — from polymerisation and spinning to knitting, dyeing and garment manufacturing.
The process began with complex textile and plastic waste, which Carbios converted into monomers meeting stringent quality and performance standards comparable with petrochemical-derived materials.
Those monomers were then repolymerised by Selenis in Portugal, producing more than one tonne of recycled PET, marketed as EnzyTex. The material was designed to integrate directly into existing industrial production lines.
The recycled PET was subsequently spun into yarn on ANTEX’s industrial lines in Spain, knitted into Interlock fabric by Henitex in France, dyed by TAD (Teintures et Apprêts Danjoux) in France and finally manufactured into garments by ToptexCube (Chamatex Group) in France.
Each stage was carried out under standard industrial conditions.
Carbios said the resulting fibres were fully compatible with conventional textile manufacturing processes, delivering mechanical strength, dyeability and colour fastness equivalent to virgin polyester.
The entire garment was manufactured in Europe, providing what the company described as a demonstration of the scalability of circular textile manufacturing without compromising quality.
Benoît Grenot, CEO of Carbios, said: “This achievement demonstrates that enzymatic recycling meets the highest standards of the textile industry. By converting complex waste streams into high-purity building blocks for the production of recycled polyester, we are proving that circularity is already an operational reality ready for deployment at industrial scale.”
Howard Williams, Director Global Innovation Apparel & Accessories at PUMA, said: “Carbios has demonstrated that complex PET waste can be recycled into high-quality polyester fibers under existing industrial conditions and repurposed into high-quality products.”
Guillaume Meyzenq, CEO of Salomon, said: “The success of this Consortium highlights the power of collective intelligence to tackle one of our industry's most complex challenges. By combining our expertise across the entire value chain, we have demonstrated that circularity for high-performance textiles is becoming an industrial reality.
'Together, we have proven that innovative recycling technologies can transform complex waste into high-quality materials without ever compromising on technical performance. For Salomon, this milestone opens significant opportunities to scale circular solutions and shape a more responsible future for outdoor sports apparel.”
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