Accelerating Circularity’s mission is to catalyze supply chains and business models to turn spent textiles into mainstream raw materials. The vision is a world in which textiles no longer are wasted and millions of tons of waste are diverted from landfill and incineration.
Accelerating Circularity is an action-oriented nonprofit focused on textile-to-textile recycling at a commercial scale through a collaborative, stakeholder-led approach. In mid-2022, it launched polyester textile-to-textile trials and has been working to define the products and value chains for cellulosics. Four cellulosics value chains have been defined so far.
“Circularity is a team sport,” said Karla Magruder, ACP founder, and president. “We have been working with 80-plus value chain members representing the EU-27 plus Norway, Switzerland, the U.K., Morocco and Turkey. Our focus is on post-consumer textiles, as we believe they are too good to waste. When a textile has cycled through repair, re-use, resale, and/or re-make, such that it retains no readily accessible value, the material is spent. By diverting post-consumer spent textiles from downcycling, incineration, and landfill, we can lower the textile industry’s environmental impacts.”
Accelerating Circularity trials are supported by JUBEL.AI, a cloud-based platform with advanced AI technology. JUBEL.AI offers data sharing capability that enables the collaboration and information sharing required to make the pilot trials successful.
The product trial range will cover single jersey and Italian fleece items, woven lightweight shirts, and heavier-weight twill fabrics. The target composition is 40 percent recycled content; half is to come from post-consumer spent textiles. The goal is a minimum of 50 tons of post-consumer spent textile feedstock across all products and partners with the ideal timeline of Spring 2023 for the initial development of fabrics.
Brands interested in adopting ACP fabrics into their season should reach out to info@acceleratingcircularity.org.
