Netherlands-headquartered RE&UP Recycling Technologies is turning "mixed waste recycling," a long-standing challenge for the textile industry, into a mass-producible reality. Leveraging the textile manufacturing expertise of its parent company SANKO, the company has developed a patented process combining mechanical and thermo-mechanical methods. Its hallmark is being "feedstock-agnostic"—it can process both pre-consumer and post-consumer textile waste, and is especially adept at breaking down difficult-to-recycle materials such as poly-cotton blends and polyester elastane. According to the company, the process can separate poly-cotton mixtures into pure recycled fibers with thorough decolorization and long fiber length, delivering performance comparable to virgin materials and feeding directly into existing yarn, fabric, and garment production lines.

On the strategic front, PUMA and RE&UP signed a letter of intent on March 26, 2025, establishing a strategic partnership. PUMA aims to replace 30% of the polyester fabric in its apparel products with fiber-to-fiber recycled materials by 2030, and has explicitly stated its hope to "reduce reliance on bottle-based recycled polyester." Howard Williams, Global Director of Innovation Apparel and Accessories, pointed to an awkward reality in the sportswear industry: the widely used recycled polyester mostly comes from recycled PET bottles, which is essentially downcycling and cannot prevent discarded textiles from ending up in landfills. In terms of implementation, PUMA has integrated RE&UP into its existing RE:FIBRE recycling program, using its supplied recycled cotton fibers and recycled polyester chips to produce products such as replica football jerseys, and plans to expand the project to the Americas market, achieving localized production through feedstock recycled by RE&UP from local supply chains. RE&UP Chief Commercial Officer Ozgür Atsan called this "taking it from where it is to the next level."

Commercial validation has emerged on the retail side. In August 2026, European fashion e-commerce platform Zalando's private labels YOURTURN and Even&Odd launched five T-shirts made from a circular knit blend of 80% organic cotton and 20% RE&UP Next-Gen Cotton, with all fibers sourced from textile waste. This marks the first time RE&UP recycled fibers have entered Zalando's private label product portfolio, and represents a commercial test conducted according to private label quality standards. RE&UP's process covers three steps—sorting, deconstruction, and decolorization—and the resulting recycled materials meet commercial textile manufacturing standards in technical performance, environmental metrics, and supply chain traceability. Atsan stated: "Industrial-scale circularity is no longer just a vision—it is already operational." Frederic Teufel, Commercial Director of Zalando Private Labels, emphasized that the collection strikes a balance between entry-level pricing, quality, and new materials.

From signing in 2025 to hitting shelves in 2026, RE&UP completed the journey from intent to shelf in one year. For the used clothing trade and recycling industry, its significance lies in providing a replicable supply chain model: discarded textiles can once again become a raw material source for the apparel industry without sacrificing quality and with controllable costs.

Source: Farewell to the Bottle Flake Recycling Era? From PUMA to Zalando, RE&UP "Regenerates" Discarded Textiles into Clothing · Originally published on 2026-09-11