Freepoint Eco-Systems’ Post

🌍 Recycling: Is our solution just part of the problem? 🌍 With only 9% of all plastic ever recycled, there's a big push from governments and the fashion industry to ramp up the use of recycled materials. But could this well-intended move be inadvertently making things worse? This is what we're looking at in today’s video. We dive into the EU's ambitious strategy to transform the textile industry into a circular economy, where everything gets reused and nothing goes to waste. Sounds ideal, right? However, there's a hidden complication that might not be so sustainable after all: recycled synthetic materials like polyester might carry more baggage than we realise. We will look at chemicals which are not intended to be in a product but somehow reappear in a recycled item; these are known as NIAS (Non-intentionally Added Substances). Think about it: could the clothes made from recycled fibers be exposing us to harmful chemicals? And what about the impact on communities in low-income countries, where much of the recycling processing happens? Today, we'll explore the three major ways these toxic invaders could be sneaking into our "green" alternatives. We'll also looking at whether our efforts to reduce waste are simply leading us to consume more in a guilt-free way, under the guise of sustainability. If you like the video, please share it with your professional network. Together we can make a difference! #SustainableFashion #RecyclingDebate #EcoFriendlyLiving #missloveterra #recycle #polyester

Discover the key to unlocking a sustainable future! 🌱 Uncover the secrets of plastic recycling and empower yourself to make a positive impact on our environment. 🔄 Let's join forces in building a circular economy together! 💚 #Sustainability #RecyclingRevolution #CircularEconomy 🌍

📄 The Journey of Recycled Polyester Sharing this article about the journey of recycled polyester, from bottle to fabric. Learn about the sustainable processes that turn waste into valuable textiles. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dsT_d5SB #Sustainability #RecycledPolyester #EcoFriendly #TextileInnovation

✨Better together - A collaboration to revolutionise textile recycling!✨ We are proud to announce our new partnership and groundbreaking collaboration with The Loop Factory! With a shared commitment to systemic change and innovation, our partnership aims to provide circular material solutions based on recycled textiles at scale. In response to the urgent need for scalable circular solutions in textile recycling, we're teaming up to make a significant impact in the Nordic market and beyond. "For us, the circular economy revolution isn't just a trend; it's our established norm," said Director of Partnerships at Rester Anna-Kaisa Huttunen and CEO of The Loop Factory Maria Ström. Join us in our commitment to sustainability and innovation!  Visit https://lnkd.in/dVSb9nJ2 and www.rester.fi to stay updated on our journey towards a circular economy. 🌐 Read more about the collaboration: https://lnkd.in/dr6emNWM #rester #theloopfactory #collaboration #nonwoven #textilerecyling #circulareconomy 

We are hugely grateful to Rebecca Deczynski and Inc. Magazine for such deep and important reporting on the textile waste crisis, its causes, and the challenges and opportunities presented by circular solutions, including our own at SuperCircle. 🙏 ♻ “To further understand why true textile recycling has been a challenge to pull off, all you have to do is look at the failures of plastic recycling: A lack of standardization, well-funded sorting infrastructure, and production costs that are too high to justify—and because the low cost of the resulting product ultimately failed to keep plastics out of the environment. Indeed, as The Center for Climate Integrity February 2024 report shows, the push for plastic recycling, which started in the '70s, was a strategic move orchestrated by the plastics industry to sell more plastic—despite knowing that recycling of this kind would never be scalable.” 😰 “So is textile recycling—a true closed loop in which T-shirts become new T-shirts and shoes become new shoes, in perpetuity—a hoax? Or is it just wishful thinking? No, Chloe Marie Songer and Stuart Ahlum (CEO & Co-Founder and COO & Co-Founder of SuperCircle, respectively) contend, but it is something that's still in very early stages.” 🌱 “Here's how it works: SuperCircle collects textiles—often excess and damaged inventory—directly from individual consumers and from more than 30 brand partners, including UNIQLO and J.Crew. It sorts and categorizes those materials, building up its own inventory of textile waste until it reaches the critical mass needed to unlock cost efficiencies that come from recycling at scale.” 📈 “Making the entire process faster and more efficient is SuperCircle's technology stack. It's still being built out, but so far includes features like digital twin technology—virtual records of each item of recycled clothing—which allows the company to both sort textiles and track where their shipments end up. This helps increase transparency for recycling partners, so they can better anticipate when their next feedstock shipment might be ready.” “To date, the company and its 20-plus recycling partners have diverted more than two million textile products from landfills.” 🌎 __ Read the full in-depth story at the link in comments, and let’s keep building towards a circular future together—because as the article closes, with a powerful quote from Rachel Van Metre Kibbe, CEO of ACT (American Circular Textiles), “It's very easy for everyone to say, 'This is too complicated. It's too far away. It'll never happen. Let's just kick that can down the street,'" Kibbe says. "We know what we need to do." 💪 #circularity #circularfashion #sustainability

The EU's Sustainable and Circular Textiles Strategy is driving significant changes in the textile industry. Sixteen sustainability legislations are being developed, with the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) and Eco-design for Sustainable Products (ESPR) emerging as key drivers of textile circularity. The WFD sets recycling targets and promotes separate collection, aligning with ESPR's goals of recyclability and minimum recycled content. Industry change-makers like Recover™ are actively engaging with policy makers at national and European levels to shape textile circularity policies. Recover™ partners with associations like EuRIC Textiles and ATEVAL to unite the recycling sector's voice and resources, facilitating communication with stakeholders and policy makers. We aim to be agents of change, contributing to the circular economy and demonstrating the benefits of recycled cotton. Discover relevant industry changes here: #sustainability #circularfashion

An interesting article revolving around textile recycling published by Fibre2Fashion 🧐 „One of the central hurdles in recycling post-consumer textile waste and fostering a circular economy is the poor quality of the recycled materials. (...) As such, enhancing the technologies for recycling and processing fibres is a crucial step in elevating the quality of these post-consumer goods.” #materialsensing #textileanalysis #textilerecycling #sustainability #postconsumerwaste

We are being faced with a monumental plastic problem. How are we going to approach true circularity in packaging – and specifically beauty packaging? Discover four recommendations for approaching circularity in beauty packaging and how to be realistic about our plastic use.  https://lnkd.in/duVVi3rk . . . . Andrew Dent #materialconnexion #circularpackaging #sustainablebeauty #sustainabledesign #circulardesign #circularity #sustainability #sustainablepackaging #plastic #materialmindeddesign #mcx

PLASTICS INDUSTRY MISLED PUBLIC TO SELL “FALSE PROMISE” OF RECYCLING Petrochemical companies should be held accountable for the “devastating harms” they have caused by deceiving the public about the viability of plastics recycling, according to The Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a US-based environmental research and advocacy group. In their latest report titled "The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the plastics industry deceived the public for decades and caused the plastic waste crisis", claims that by deliberately misleading policymakers and consumers on the viability of plastics recycling, the petrochemical industry discouraged the development of more effective, more sustainable waste management strategies. Petrochemical companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell and Dow should therefore be held liable for their contribution to the plastic waste crisis, the report argues. The report states that “plastics have a linear rather than circular lifespan - when viable, recycling provides only a brief delay on their inevitable journey to landfills, incinerators or the environment” and later argues that the plastics industry “co-opted” the language of the circular economy to ‘sell’ plastics recycling as a waste management solution. Another challenge outlined by the CCI is the fact that recycling plastic is more expensive than producing virgin plastic from fossil fuels, therefore, plastics which are technically recyclable are often not recycled or have limited use in practice. Globally, only nine per cent of plastic is recycled, a rate substantially lower than those for other common materials. Most plastic is landfilled, incinerated or leaks into the environment. The CCI asserts that petrochemical companies were aware of the limitations of plastics recycling decades ago, but endorsed it as a waste management solution to increase demand for and avoid legislative restrictions on their products. Plastic pollution poses serious environmental, economic and health-related threats, with one study estimating that humans ingest up to five grams (or the equivalent of one credit card worth) of plastic per week. Half of the plastic produced each year is single-use and millions of metric tonnes of it end up in our oceans and rivers. The CCI report details how plastics companies ‘sold’ plastics recycling through a variety of tactics including establishment of front groups, funding advertisements and PR campaigns designed to persuade the public that plastic is generally recyclable. The CCI suggests that as the public becomes more aware of this problem, demand for improved plastic management is increasing. The CCI report concludes that “municipalities and states are likely to pursue litigation” against petrochemical companies, which could “make [them] pay for the devastating harms they have caused to communities, and open the door to real solutions that are currently out of reach”. Source: Bella Zanin 20 February 2024. resource.co

𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐬 🌍♻️ Increasing minimum recycled content in plastics has driven continuous improvements and fostered a circular economy. These policies derisk the recycling industry, ensure future demand, stabilise prices for recycled materials, and incentivise investment in recycling infrastructure. They also reduce reliance on virgin materials, leading to significant energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The success of such policies highlights their effectiveness in promoting sustainability and achieving positive environmental outcomes. 𝟏. 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 Recycled content targets in textiles could be a crucial solution. By mandating the use of recycled content, governments can create guaranteed demand for recycled textiles. This demand certainty incentivises investors and provides a positive business case for recyclers, encouraging investment in recycling infrastructure and expansion of operations. 🌱👗 𝟐. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 Recycled content targets in textiles would decouple the price of recycled materials from virgin materials, stabilising prices and making recycled textiles more competitive. This would decrease the price premium, making it financially feasible for brands to incorporate more recycled content. Guaranteeing demand and securing investment can accelerate the development of commercial recycling facilities, achieving higher levels of scale, further reducing the price premium of recycled textiles. 🏭💡 𝟑. 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 Recycled content targets can drive innovation within the textile industry. With a clear mandate, brands and manufacturers would be motivated to develop new technologies and processes to incorporate recycled materials more efficiently, leading to breakthroughs in textile recycling and enhancing overall industry sustainability. Moreover, recycled content targets align with the broader goals of a circular economy, where materials are kept in use for as long as possible. 🌍🔄 Recycled content targets offer a promising pathway to overcome key challenges in scaling and adopting recycled materials in the textile industry. By creating guaranteed demand and stabilising prices, these targets can incentivise investment, drive innovation, and accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and circular textile economy. Let's continue the conversation! How can the textile industry further leverage recycled content targets to boost sustainability? What additional measures are needed to support this transition? Share your thoughts and insights! 🌿🧵 #SustainableFashion #CircularEconomy #Recycling #Innovation #TextileIndustry #PlasticRecycling #FashionIndustry #GreenInvestment