In 2024, China's cotton output exceeded 6 million tons, chemical fiber output approached 70 million tons, and fabric output surpassed 30 billion meters. Waste textile recycling reached 5.15 million tons, rising continuously from 2016 to 2024, with a growth rate of 15.7% in 2023—these are figures released at the 2025 Circular Innovation · Fashion Conference in Shanghai. However, the total recycling volume remains insufficient relative to the enormous scale of production and consumption, and about 73% of old textiles ultimately end up being incinerated.

Key Points

  • Recycling volume: 5.15 million tons in 2024, with a growth rate of 15.7% in 2023 and continuous growth from 2016 to 2024.
  • Policy: In April 2022, three government departments set the target of "a 25% recycling rate and 2 million tons of recycled fiber output by 2025"; in April 2025, China Resource Recycling Group Green Fiber Co., Ltd. was unveiled in Wuxi.
  • Regulation: The EU's ESPR took effect in July 2024, covering 16 ecodesign performance requirements.

Four Bottlenecks: Policy Direction, Technological Breakthroughs, Regulatory Pressure, and Digital Weaving

Top-level design has already been rolled out. In April 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Recycling of Waste Textiles," locking in a 25% recycling rate for waste textiles by 2025 and requiring recycled fiber output to reach 2 million tons. In April this year, China Resource Recycling Group Green Fiber Co., Ltd. was unveiled in Wuxi, regarded by industry insiders as a landmark move by the national level to increase specialized and large-scale investment in textile regeneration and utilization.

The technological segment remains the hardest nut to crack. Xu Weilin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Party Secretary of Wuhan Textile University, summarized the industry's pain points as the triple dilemma of difficult recycling, difficult separation, and low large-scale utilization rates, among which polyester-cotton blended products are called the "hard bone" of regeneration due to their complex composition. The currently dominant physical method can only downgrade waste textiles into low-value-added products such as felt and filling materials; the chemical method can pursue a high-value route but is constrained by cost, process, and solvent recovery. The ionic liquid solvent system jointly developed by Wuhan Textile University and the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences can efficiently separate cellulose and polyester at room temperature to 60°C, and is seen as a new window for high-value regeneration.

The pressure from external regulations is equally tangible. The EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which took effect in July 2024, covers 16 ecodesign performance requirements across the product life cycle and mandates recording data such as product carbon footprint and microplastic release, posing a compliance test for Chinese textile exporters. Yan Yan, vice president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, believes this requires the industry to complete a "thorough shift in perspective," with all actors in the value chain bearing "common but differentiated responsibilities."

Product digital passports connecting both ends are being rolled out. In June this year, the China National Textile and Apparel Council released the "Product Digital Passport White Paper," promoting the participation of brands such as Li-Ning, Anta, and Bosideng, as well as manufacturers such as Kaili and Dali. As an electronic digital identity file for textile products, it runs through the entire life cycle of "design—production—distribution—consumption—recycling," linking carbon labels and ESG information while also displaying processing factories and logistics routes through dynamic maps.

If the above arrangements proceed smoothly, the bottlenecks in China's textile-to-textile closed loop will gradually loosen, and new entry ticket requirements will be imposed on product compliance for exports to the EU.

Source: Waste Textile Recycling Growth: The Textile Industry Begins Its Transition from Linear to Circular · Originally published on 2025-09-04