France to host first commercial-scale blended textile recycling facility
Saint-Avold facility will recycle poly-cotton blends into cellulose and PET textile inputs using hydrothermal technology.
Textile recycler, Circ, has announced plans to build France’s first commercial-scale textile-to-textile recycling facility, capable of processing blended textiles into inputs for new clothing.
The facility, to be located in Saint-Avold, North-eastern France, will target poly-cotton blends that currently make up the majority of global textile waste, recycling them into cellulose and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) inputs.
Construction of the facility is scheduled to begin in late 2026, with full operations targeted for 2028. At full capacity, the site aims to recycle 70,000 metric tonnes of poly-cotton textiles each year.
What technologies will the new facility use?
The new facility will deploy Circ’s patented hydrothermal recycling technology, engineering to tackle poly-cotton blends previously considered unrecyclable at commercial scale. For input materials, Circ will utilise a combination of post-industrial and post-consumer textile waste.
This process uses pressurised water and heat, combined with proprietary refining steps, to separate cotton from polyester in blended textiles. The polyester is depolymerised into its base monomers, which can then be reconstructed into virgin-equivalent polyester fibres.
The cotton component is processed to yield intact cellulose chains that are suitable for creating new cellulosic fibres such as viscose or lyocell.
The end products emerging from Circ’s facility will be cellulose pulp, purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and mono ethylene glycol (MEG) - when combined, PTA and MEG produce PET, which is the most common type of polyester fibre. All of these materials will be fed directly back into textile manufacturing supply chains.
Nicole Rycroft, Canopy’s Founder and Executive Director, commented on the announcement: “For decades, fashion has been locked into a take-make-waste model — fuelling pollution, forest degradation, and climate instability. Circ’s new mill flips that script: transforming worn-out clothes into new textiles, reducing reliance on both forests and fossil fuels, and proving that the future of fashion is circular, low-carbon, and here.”
According to the organisation, these “Next Gen fibres” produce 95 per cent to 130 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions, and create five times lower impact on biodiversity and threatened species when compared to virgin forest fibres.
