China generates over 20 million tonnes of waste textiles annually, yet the recycling rate is less than 30%, with only about 1% achieving "textile-to-textile" closed-loop recycling. Sourcelight Biotechnology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. signed an agreement with the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area Administrative Committee, landing the world's first bio-enzymatic 5,000-tonne rPTA (recycled purified terephthalic acid) project, expected to begin production in 2026, processing approximately 10,000 tonnes of waste textiles annually at scale. Its developed "Sourcelight Enzyme" can shorten the degradation cycle of polyester from 300 to 500 years under natural conditions to within 8 hours.

Key Points

  • According to data from the China National Textile and Apparel Council, China's waste textile recycling volume in 2024 was 5.15 million tonnes, while annual generation exceeds 20 million tonnes, with a recycling rate of less than 30%.
  • Sourcelight Biotechnology's 5,000-tonne-per-year rPTA bio-enzymatic production line has landed in the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area. After commencing production in 2026, it will process approximately 10,000 tonnes of waste textiles annually.
  • Policy targets are a 25% recycling rate for waste textiles and 2 million tonnes of recycled fiber output by 2025, and a 30% recycling rate by 2030.

Recycling Volume Grows, but the Gap Remains Large

The data released by Yan Yan, Vice President of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, at the "2025 Circular Innovation · Fashion Conference" outlines the scale of the industry: in 2024, China's cotton output exceeded 6 million tonnes, chemical fiber output approached 7 million tonnes, fabric output exceeded 30 billion meters, and waste textile recycling volume was 5.15 million tonnes. From 2016 to 2024, recycling volume generally rose, with growth once reaching 15.7% in 2023. However, relative to annual generation exceeding 20 million tonnes, there is still great room for resource utilization. Professor Gong Jixian, Vice Dean of the School of Textile Science and Engineering at Tiangong University, summarized the real-world dilemma as "difficult to recycle, difficult to separate, and low large-scale utilization rate," noting that beyond technical bottlenecks, there are also constraints at the economic, policy, and awareness levels. Among the five major categories of recyclable solid waste in municipal waste, waste textiles rank last in utilization rate.

Breakthroughs in Separation and Sorting

Technology on the processing side is addressing the problem in a targeted way. The chemical recycling technology developed by CTMTC Textile Academy (Tianjin) Technology Development Co., Ltd. can separate polyester from cotton in polyester-cotton blended products, allowing the two components to enter separate recycling processes, replacing the traditional path of "low efficiency, high energy consumption, and heavy pollution." Tiangong University, meanwhile, has focused its efforts on the recycling side. Relying on its first-class discipline in textile science and engineering, it has developed smart waste textile recycling bins and an AI vision-based multi-parameter recognition and sorting system that can sort more than 50 types of materials by color, material, and other factors. It has also worked with enterprises to build a 2,000-square-meter waste textile sorting production line, achieving commercialization in Tianjin. In April 2025, China Resource Recycling Group Green Fiber Co., Ltd. was inaugurated in Wuxi, Jiangsu, advancing resource recycling in the waste textile niche toward greater specialization and scale.

Digital Passports Connect Information Across the Entire Chain

Beyond physical regeneration, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) has become another thread. In June 2025, the China National Textile and Apparel Council released the "2025 China Textile Industry Digital Product Passport (DPP) White Paper." It serves both as a digital identity file of product lifecycle information and as a link connecting design, production, distribution, consumption, and recycling. Yan Yan said the industry has initially formed a DPP working system of "white paper mapping the path, standards providing guidance, and system technology landing." Taking apparel as an example, consumers can scan a code to view raw material sources, production energy consumption, carbon footprint data, and recycling guidance, and can also retrieve carbon footprint reports with one click and view processing factories and logistics routes through dynamic maps. Yang Shangbao, a public policy scholar at the National Development and Reform Commission, proposed that subsequent policies should focus on three areas: unified standards, data sharing, and financial support, to improve the recycling system and expand application scenarios for recycled fibers.

For the used clothing trade and recycling industry, the pattern of huge upstream generation and a relatively low recycling rate will not change in the short term. However, incremental raw material collection capacity, improvements in sorting technology resolution, and the binding of digital passports with carbon labels will all directly affect the availability of recycled raw materials and the pricing basis for downstream fibers. Whether the bio-enzymatic and chemical routes can scale up as scheduled will determine whether the 30% recycling rate target for 2030 has solid backing.

Source: Workers' Daily | China's waste textiles exceed 20 million tonnes annually, but the recycling rate is less than 30%. New technology unlocks the code for old clothes to be "reborn" · Originally published on 2025-11-11