Summary: French enzymatic recycling company Carbios, together with Patagonia, Puma, Salomon and European manufacturing partners, has successfully produced recycled polyester T-shirts from complex textile waste across a fully European value chain, validated on existing industrial production lines.

Key Points

  • Demonstration participants include Carbios, Patagonia, Puma, Salomon and European manufacturing partners, with complex textile waste as feedstock.
  • The output is recycled polyester T-shirts, produced entirely within the European textile value chain.
  • Technology validation was carried out on existing industrial production lines, without relying on newly built pilot facilities.

French green-tech company Carbios has announced a Europe-wide textile-to-textile recycling demonstration: using its enzymatic recycling technology, complex textile waste was converted into recycled polyester fiber and ultimately made into finished T-shirts. Brands involved in the project include Patagonia, Puma and Salomon, continuing the sports and outdoor apparel sector's push into recycled materials.

What makes this demonstration notable is that the process did not remain at laboratory scale. Carbios says the recycling and remanufacturing steps were completed on existing industrial production lines, meaning the technology pathway is already capable of being directly embedded into the current textile manufacturing system.

The feedstock was not cleanly sorted, single-material waste but compositionally complex textile waste — precisely the pain point that has long made fiber recycling difficult to commercialize economically. The project team focused its validation on this type of complex waste, seeking to prove the enzymatic technology's adaptability to mixed materials.

The industry significance lies in this: if this Europe-based textile-to-textile recycling chain can be replicated at scale, it will help brands reduce their reliance on virgin polyester, advance the EU's textile circularity goals, and offer used textiles an alternative outlet beyond downcycling.

Source: Carbios demonstrates European textile-to-textile recycling chain · Originally published 2026-10-06