Irish fast-fashion retailer Primark has signed a multi-year recycled polyester offtake agreement with textile-to-textile recycling company Circ, committing to use Circ recycled polyester in its clothing products from 2029. The move aims to secure future demand for Circ's planned first industrial-scale recycling plant in France. Circ's plant in Saint-Avold, northeastern France, is designed to process 70,000 tonnes of textile waste per year, is expected to cost about $500 million, is being developed through a mix of equity and debt financing, and is seeking grants and guarantees. Neither Primark nor Circ disclosed the financial terms or purchase volumes of the agreement.

Key points

  • Primark has committed to using Circ recycled polyester in its clothing from 2029, its first multi-year offtake agreement with a textile-to-textile recycler.
  • Circ's Saint-Avold plant in France is expected to be completed by the end of 2028, processing 70,000 tonnes of textile waste per year at a cost of about $500 million.
  • 39% of the clothing Primark sold in its last financial year contained recycled fibers, up from 32% the previous year.

A Primark spokesperson told WWD that the company spent about 18 months evaluating textile-to-textile polyester suppliers before choosing Circ. Key factors included Circ's ability to recycle polycotton—one of the hardest-to-recycle and most abundant blends—as well as the location of its French plant. "We recognize that we can not only source recycled textile polyester but also contribute to solving a problem material," the spokesperson said.

Circ CEO Peter Majeranowski told WWD: "This is an important moment because it turns a shared vision into a credible long-term commercial path." He added that Primark's multi-year commitment provides future demand assurance, "helps de-risk the market, strengthens the case to investors and financing partners, and allows broader supply chain planning integration." However, Majeranowski noted that the agreement itself does not provide financing for the plant, nor is Primark directly funding construction. "A project of this scale requires a broader mix of capital sources."

Circ's technology is designed to separate polycotton into its constituent materials, recovering cellulose from the cotton and PTA and MEG—the building blocks of polyester—from the polyester component. The company says its technology is designed to process polycotton feedstock that meets specific technical specifications and has been properly sorted and prepared. "The challenge is not a lack of textile waste, because there is plenty of polycotton available. Our technology requires feedstock that meets established specifications, so we are developing a diversified supply pipeline and working with partners on sorting, preparation, traceability and qualification," Majeranowski said.

Primark also said that scaling textile-to-textile recycling will depend on robust waste collection and sorting infrastructure, including higher collection rates and automated sorting, as well as advanced recycling technologies and policy measures such as clear extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes and recycled content requirements. "Textile waste is one of the biggest challenges facing the fashion industry, and innovation is essential to solving it at scale," the company said.

Majeranowski noted that for Circ, the Primark agreement is also tied to financing its commercial infrastructure, because investors and lenders need visibility on future demand. "When you are building first-of-a-kind infrastructure, investors and lenders need confidence not only in the technology but also that the material produced by the facility will have sustained and growing commercial demand. A long-term agreement with a global retailer like Primark, committing to include a defined volume of Circ polyester in its collections, turns broad market interest into a more tangible demand signal, helping to de-risk the commercial side and underpin the project's basic economics."

Circ said construction of the French plant is expected to be completed by the end of 2028, and the company aims to have recycled polyester used in Primark products from 2029. Primark said 39% of the clothing units it sold in its most recent financial year contained recycled fibers, up from 32% the previous year. The company has also committed to removing "conventional materials" from its clothing by 2030. A Primark spokesperson added that the partnership with Circ will provide another route to reducing reliance on virgin materials, alongside the company's existing work on using recycled fibers, including its partnership with supplier Recover.

Meanwhile, Primark is reviewing its Primark Cares strategy, launched in 2021, in response to changes in European regulation, technology and consumer expectations. Majeranowski also said textile recycling itself cannot be seen as a solution to the fashion industry's broader environmental impact. "If clothing production and virgin material consumption continue to grow in tandem, the benefits of recycling could be offset by an increase in the industry's overall impact. Therefore, the industry must address both the volume of resource consumption and the material systems behind products."

Source: EXCLUSIVE: Primark Backs Circ With Long-term Recycled Polyester Deal · Originally published 2026-09-28