Textile Recycling Market Size and Share
Textile Recycling Market Analysis by Mordor Intelligence
The Textile Recycling Market reached USD 6.62 billion in 2025 and is forecast to climb to USD 10.48 billion by 2030, reflecting a 9.60% CAGR through the period. Heightened regulatory pressure, particularly the European Union’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy, is turning waste liabilities into revenue streams and reshaping investment priorities. Fast-fashion brands now anchor long-term offtake agreements that guarantee demand for recycled fibers, allowing technology providers to unlock financing for advanced depolymerization plants. Asia’s manufacturing concentration supplies abundant feedstock, while the Middle East gains ground on the back of circular-economy incentives. Chemical recycling breakthroughs are closing the quality gap with virgin materials, yet high capital costs and energy intensity remain persistent headwinds.
Key Report Takeaways
- By material, polyester held 45% of the textile recycling market share in 2024, while nylon is advancing at a 9.6% CAGR through 2030.
- By waste source, post-consumer waste commanded 61% of the textile recycling market in 2024; pre-consumer sources recorded the fastest expansion at 8.7% CAGR to 2030.
- By application, apparel accounted for 40.3% of demand in 2024, whereas automotive is projected to grow 9.7% annually to 2030.
- By process, mechanical methods captured 82% of the textile recycling market size in 2024; chemical routes are widening at a 12.8% CAGR.
- By geography, Asia-Pacific dominated with a 46.5% share in 2024; the Middle East is poised for an 8.9% CAGR to 2030.
Global Textile Recycling Market Trends and Insights
Drivers Impact Analysis
Driver | % Impact on CAGR Forecast | Geographic Relevance | Impact Timeline |
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Green Deal-Driven Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Roll-out in the EU | +2.1% | Europe, with spillover to North America | Medium term (2-4 years) |
Fast-Fashion Brand Commitments to ≥50% Recycled Fiber by 2026 | +1.8% | Global, concentrated in North America & Europe | Short term (≤ 2 years) |
Chemical Depolymerisation Scale-ups Unlocking Closed-Loop Polyester | +1.5% | Global, with early deployment in North America & Europe | Long term (≥ 4 years) |
China's Landfill/Incineration Quotas Forcing Domestic Mill Recycling Investments | +1.2% | APAC core, particularly China | Medium term (2-4 years) |
Block-Chain Traceability Platforms Boosting Brand Acceptance | +0.8% | Global, with premium brand adoption in developed markets | Medium term (2-4 years) |
Automotive NVH Demand for Recycled Non-wovens in North America | +0.6% | North America, with expansion to Europe | Long term (≥ 4 years) |
Source: Mordor Intelligence
Green Deal-driven Extended Producer Responsibility Rollout in the EU
Mandatory separate textile collection begins across the bloc in January 2025, shifting disposal costs to producers through eco-modulated fees[1]European Commission Directorate-General for Environment, “Circular Economy Action Plan 2025: Mandatory Textile EPR,” European Commission, ec.europa.eu. France already channels about EUR 100 million a year from its scheme into collection infrastructure that processes 240,000 tons of waste. Early adopters such as the Netherlands hit 50% recycling rates two years ahead of the EU target, demonstrating scalability. California’s SB 707 mirrors the model, preventing regulatory arbitrage and standardising minimum recycling thresholds. Predictable fee income lowers project risk, accelerating deployments of regional processing hubs.
Fast-fashion Brand Commitments to ≥50% Recycled Fiber by 2026
H&M Group’s seven-year USD 600 million offtake deal with Syre underscores how purchase guarantees are derisking chemical-recycling investments[2]Annika Söder, “Syre Signs USD 600 Million Recycled Polyester Offtake with H&M Group,” H&M Group, hmgroup.com. Gap Inc. and Carter’s share comparable supply-chain goals, pushing aggregate contracted demand above USD 2 billion. Recycled polyester currently commands 15-20% price premiums over virgin equivalents, strengthening revenue visibility for suppliers. Long-term contracts reduce customer acquisition cost and support debt-financed facility builds, especially in Asia and Europe, where brands maintain production clusters.
Chemical depolymerisation scale-ups unlocking closed-loop polyester
Circ, Syre, and Eastman each progressed multi-hundred-million-dollar projects in 2025, reporting virgin-grade output with up to 85% lower carbon footprints relative to fossil-route polyester. University-backed innovations, like microwave-assisted glycolysis, reach 88% circularity within 15 minutes, paving the way for high-throughput operations. Strategic partnerships with fiber producers safeguard feedstock and offtake flows, positioning chemical recycling as a viable complement to mechanical routes.
China Landfill and Incineration Quotas Forcing Domestic Mill Recycling Investments
Zero-Waste City pilots now cover 108 municipalities, restricting landfill and incineration volumes while encouraging resource recovery[3]Hongliang Wang, “Zero-Waste City Pilot Progress Report 2024,” Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, mee.gov.cn. Despite generating 26 million tons of textile waste annually, China recycles only 20%, exposing a sizable domestic market once regulatory barriers on recycled content ease. Municipal incentives and quotas are propelling mill upgrades and joint ventures aimed at retaining value onshore rather than exporting waste.
Restraints Impact Analysis
Restraint | % Impact on CAGR Forecast | Geographic Relevance | Impact Timeline |
---|---|---|---|
High-CAPEX & Energy-Intensive Chemical Lines Limiting Commercialisation | -1.4% | Global, particularly affecting emerging markets | Long term (≥ 4 years) |
Fiber-Blend Contamination Complicating Automated Sorting & Yield | -1.1% | Global, with acute challenges in post-consumer waste streams | Medium term (2-4 years) |
Absence of Bale-Grade Pricing Benchmarks Dampening Investor Confidence | -0.8% | Global, with particular impact on financing in developing markets | Short term (≤ 2 years) |
Fragmented Collection Infrastructure in US & Emerging Asia | -0.7% | United States and emerging Asia-Pacific markets | Medium term (2-4 years) |
Source: Mordor Intelligence
High CAPEX & Energy-intensive Chemical Lines Limiting Commercialisation
Typical units require USD 200–500 million, and energy demand ranges from 15–25 GJ per ton, fivefold the mechanical alternative[4]Swedish Chemicals Agency, “Fast Fashion and Chemical Recycling: Risk Assessment 2024,” KemI, kemi.se. Renewcell’s 2024 bankruptcy illustrated financing fragility despite brand partnerships. Subsidies such as Eastman’s now-revoked Department of Energy grant highlight reliance on policy support. Capital intensity often localises projects in OECD regions, leaving feedstock-rich emerging markets underserved.
Fiber-blend Contamination Complicating Automated Sorting & Yield
Near-infrared scanners reach only 85% accuracy on elastane-rich blends, driving quality downgrades and material loss. Pilot lines in France process 25,000 tons annually, yet must divert contaminated fractions to lower-value uses. Novel chemical-separation chemistries are promising but add cost and complexity, sustaining a price premium for clean pre-consumer waste.
Segment Analysis
By Material: Polyester Dominance Drives Chemical Innovation
Polyester accounted for 45% of the textile recycling market in 2024 on the back of established PET supply chains and consumer familiarity. Mechanical processes handle clear streams efficiently, while chemical depolymerisation eliminates quality drop-offs, widening usage in high-end apparel. The nylon segment is expanding at 9.6% CAGR, buoyed by automotive and sportswear blends that demand high tensile strength. Technologies such as ECONYL feed closed-loop loops, signalling commercial readiness. Cotton encounters policy limits in China, but blend-recovery chemistries like REFIBRA open incremental niches. Smaller categories, wool, silk, and acrylic advance as pilot lines prove technical feasibility, and brands diversify raw-material strategies.
By Waste Source: Pre-Consumer Growth Outpaces Post-Consumer Volume
Post-consumer streams held a 61% share in 2024, reflecting landfill diversion mandates and established charity-collection networks. Yet pre-consumer waste is projected to expand at 8.7% CAGR as factory off-cuts deliver uniform composition, higher yields, and 20–30% value premiums. The EU separate-collection rule, effective in 2025, will double regional post-consumer volumes by 2030, squeezing margins unless automated sorting improves. Digital passports and colour-sort robotics are emerging fixes that can unlock latent value by boosting identification accuracy.
By End-user Application: Automotive Acceleration Outpaces Apparel Growth
Apparel retained 40.3% share in 2024, supported by brand pledges for recycled content across flagship lines. Automotive interiors and NVH components, however, are forecast to rise 9.7% annually to 2030 due to regulatory fuel-efficiency targets and acoustic performance gains. Industry players demonstrate recycled polyamide composites with tensile strength exceeding 67 MPa, meeting OEM thresholds. Industrial wipes, filtration media and insulation panels represent additional outlets, broadening revenue streams beyond fashion.
By Recycling Process: Chemical Growth Challenges Mechanical Dominance
Mechanical routes made up 82% of the textile recycling market size in 2024 thanks to simplicity and low cost. Chemical techniques are growing 12.8% a year as proof-of-concept plants de-risk scalable chemistry. Ioncell and CuRe achieve near-virgin quality outputs, winning commitments from global brands. Thermal recovery declines as policy frameworks favour material circularity over combustion, re-orienting investment towards value-added processes.
Geography Analysis
Asia-Pacific led with 46.5% share in 2024, anchored by massive fiber production and export-oriented apparel hubs that generate sizeable scrap volumes. China’s 26 million-ton waste stream dwarfs global peers, yet recycled-content restrictions funnel much of the output abroad, muting domestic demand. Vietnam emerges as a preferred build site for gigascale plants because of policy incentives and proximity to manufacturing clusters. India lags on infrastructure: only 13% of waste is reused, but central-government initiatives and private partnerships are gaining traction.
The Middle East is the fastest-growing region at an 8.9% CAGR. UAE programs such as Circulife pair retail-collection drives with processing capacity, positioning the Gulf as a regional recycling hub. Turkey leverages its customs-union status with the EU to import European post-consumer bales, process them cost-effectively and re-export yarns, tapping an under-served adjacency between two large consumption zones.
Europe acts as the regulatory bellwether; EPR implementation starting 2025 is projected to lift collected volumes to 4.5-7.2 million tons by 2030. North America follows with state-level mandates like California’s SB 707 and federal coordination efforts that could unlock a USD 1.5 billion fiber-to-fiber opportunity. South America’s incipient projects in Brazil and Chile illustrate growing interest, especially where governments view recycling as a job-creation lever.

Competitive Landscape
Competitive intensity remains high and dispersed. No single player holds more than a low single-digit share, reflecting varied regional regulations, technology divergence, and feedstock logistics. Start-ups, including Circ, Syre, and Infinited Fiber, prioritise chemical routes, while incumbents such as Lenzing, Eastman, and Unifi leverage existing purification assets to scale mechanically recycled lines. Strategic alliances anchor most capacity expansions: Circ aligns with Aditya Birla for pulp supply, and Eastman collaborates with apparel brands for offtake, marrying upstream security with downstream demand certainty.
Digital-native entrants like Swatchloop and TextileGenesis monetise data services, offering AI-driven sorting guidance and traceability credentials that reduce compliance costs. Automated-sorting specialists partner with waste-management majors, eyeing integrated solutions that give recyclers bale-grade specifications and predictability. Financial investors target proven platforms: KKR-backed deals and multilateral-bank loans fund regional hubs where regulatory clarity and feedstock access converge.
Technology differentiation still defines value capture. Companies delivering blend-agnostic depolymerisation or low-energy solvents gain pricing power and fast adoption. Yet high CAPEX fosters regional monopolies around each plant, limiting global consolidation in the near term. As more EPR fees flow into infrastructure, the field is expected to tilt toward vertically integrated operators that control collection, processing and branded materials.
Textile Recycling Industry Leaders
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Worn Again Technologies
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Lenzing Group
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Birla Cellulose
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Pistoni S.R.L
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Waste Management Inc.
- *Disclaimer: Major Players sorted in no particular order

Recent Industry Developments
- June 2025: Eastman debuted Naia™ Renew bedding fill with 40% recycled content, widening application scope in home textiles Eastman.
- May 2025: Department of Energy withdrew Eastman’s USD 375 million grant for its Texas facility, underlining policy-driven risk Resource Recycling.
- March 2025: Lenzing expanded LENZING™ Lyocell Fill portfolio, adding finer variants for comfort and resource efficiency Lenzing.
- February 2025: Reju and Nouvelles Fibres Textiles formed a French ecosystem to supply secondary raw materials that cut Reju Polyester™ carbon footprint by 50% Reju.
Global Textile Recycling Market Report Scope
The textile recycling market includes processes and activities involved in the collection, sorting, processing, and reuse of textile and clothing products to extend the life of textile and clothing products and reduce their environmental impact. In the textile and fashion sectors, it aims to remove textiles from landfills, reduce waste, and promote a circular economy.
A complete background analysis of the textile recycling market, including the assessment of the economy and contribution of sectors in the economy, market overview, market size estimation for key segments, and emerging trends in the market segments, market dynamics, and geographical trends, and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, is covered in the report.
The textile recycling market is segmented by material (cotton, polyester and polyester fiber, wool, nylon and nylon fiber, and others), source (apparel waste, home furnishing waste, automotive waste, and others), process (mechanical and chemical), and geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and South America). The report offers market size and forecasts for all the above segments in value (USD).
By Material | Cotton | ||
Polyester & Polyester Fiber | |||
Wool | |||
Nylon & Nylon Fiber | |||
Others (Silk, Acrylic, Blends) | |||
By Waste Source | Pre-consumer (Factory off-cuts, Yarn waste) | ||
Post-consumer (Discarded Garments & Household Textiles) | |||
By Application End-user | Apparel & Fashion | ||
Industrial (Wipes, Filtration, Safety Gear) | |||
Home Furnishings & Carpets | |||
Automotive & Transportation | |||
Building & Construction | |||
Others (Retail/Consumer Products, etc.) | |||
By Recycling Process | Mechanical Recycling | ||
Chemical Recycling (Depolymerisation, Dissolution) | |||
Thermal/Energy Recovery | |||
By Geography | North America | United States | |
Canada | |||
Mexico | |||
South America | Brazil | ||
Argentina | |||
Chile | |||
Rest of South America | |||
Europe | Germany | ||
United Kingdom | |||
France | |||
Italy | |||
Spain | |||
BENELUX (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) | |||
NORDICS (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) | |||
Rest of Europe | |||
Asia-Pacific | China | ||
India | |||
Japan | |||
South Korea | |||
ASEAN (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam) | |||
Rest of Asia-Pacific | |||
Middle East and Africa | Saudi Arabia | ||
United Arab Emirates | |||
Turkey | |||
South Africa | |||
Nigeria | |||
Egypt | |||
Rest of Middle East and Africa |
Cotton |
Polyester & Polyester Fiber |
Wool |
Nylon & Nylon Fiber |
Others (Silk, Acrylic, Blends) |
Pre-consumer (Factory off-cuts, Yarn waste) |
Post-consumer (Discarded Garments & Household Textiles) |
Apparel & Fashion |
Industrial (Wipes, Filtration, Safety Gear) |
Home Furnishings & Carpets |
Automotive & Transportation |
Building & Construction |
Others (Retail/Consumer Products, etc.) |
Mechanical Recycling |
Chemical Recycling (Depolymerisation, Dissolution) |
Thermal/Energy Recovery |
North America | United States |
Canada | |
Mexico | |
South America | Brazil |
Argentina | |
Chile | |
Rest of South America | |
Europe | Germany |
United Kingdom | |
France | |
Italy | |
Spain | |
BENELUX (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) | |
NORDICS (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) | |
Rest of Europe | |
Asia-Pacific | China |
India | |
Japan | |
South Korea | |
ASEAN (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam) | |
Rest of Asia-Pacific | |
Middle East and Africa | Saudi Arabia |
United Arab Emirates | |
Turkey | |
South Africa | |
Nigeria | |
Egypt | |
Rest of Middle East and Africa |
Key Questions Answered in the Report
What is the current size of the textile recycling market?
The textile recycling market reached USD 6.62 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to USD 10.48 billion by 2030.
Which material segment dominates textile recycling?
Polyester leads, holding 45% of the textile recycling market share in 2024.
Why is the Middle East the fastest-growing region?
Government circular-economy programs, such as the UAE’s Circulife, coupled with strategic location between Europe and Asia, drive an 8.9% CAGR through 2030.
How do Extended Producer Responsibility policies influence the market?
EPR shifts end-of-life costs to producers, ensuring predictable fee revenue for recyclers and mandating collection systems that expand feedstock supply across the EU and other adopting regions.
Page last updated on: June 23, 2025