This document discusses closing the loop in the textile and garment industries through recycling. It notes that while progress has been made, many challenges remain across the supply chain from design to end of life. A panel discussion will share first-hand experiences working towards this goal of a circular economy. The document provides statistics on clothing waste and recycling. It also summarizes current recycling programs and initiatives from companies like Patagonia, H&M, and Mud Jeans that are working to increase recycled content in new clothing and improve clothing collection and recycling. An expert is quoted saying that circular manufacturing is coming and that fast fashion is unsustainable, as consumers accumulate more clothing than they need through buying into this system.

1. Closing the loop
Performance Days
April 21, 2016
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2. Closing the loop
Ongoing research in recycling is bringing us closer to
closing the loop in the textile and garment industries.
Many challenges remain at all levels of the supply
chain, from product design to end of life, to make
progress on the road to a circular economy.
The speakers of this panel discussion will be sharing
their first hand experience in this ambitious goal.
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3. Closing the loop
Speakers
Roberto Lucchetti
Sales Manager Tessile
Fiorentina
Peter Bos
Chairman Texperium
VirginieWittmer
Sales Manager Sofileta
Sophie Bramel
Moderator
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4. The end of life of garments:
the numbers
l On average consumers use only a third of their clothes on an
annual basis
l Women throw away 30 kg of clothing every year in the UK,
about as much as they buy, says Lucy Siegle
l Extending the use of clothes by an extra 9 months reduces
carbon, water and waste footprints by 20-30% says WRAP
l 80% of the clothes we throw away still have 75% of their
lifetime left
l 95% of all clothing is said to be recyclable
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5. Recycling data
l Worldwide 13.1 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away
each year and only 2 million tonnes are recycled (source EPA – USA)
l Around 50% of garments collected are reused (source WRAP - UK)
l Collecting & recycling (source I:CO - Puma, The North Face & Columbia Sportswear
have partnered with I:CO)
¡ 52% “re-worn”
¡ 33% recycled
¡ 9% reused
¡ 6% waste
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6. Getting the (right) message across
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recycled
reclaimed
closed loop
regenerated
regained

7. Textile recycling options
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8. Closing the loop, today
l Mud Jeans leases out jeans since 2013 and is now having 3,000 jeans
recycled into fibre to make new jeans containing 20% recycled material,
the highest percentage attainable.
l Patagonia Common Threads with Teijin (since 2005): over 50 tonnes of
clothing collected in store bins in the past ten years.
l H&M has collected some 22,000 tonnes of garments (since 2013). In 2015,
the retailer had 1.3 million pieces made with “closed loop” material.
l Gore Balance Project (1993) abandoned for lack of jackets collected for
recycling (less than 30 per year)
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9. Recycling:
a challenge and an opportunity
32 WSA March/April 2016
WSA Sustainability: Fast fashion will lose in a circular world
C
ircular manufacturing is going to
happen and is going to happen soon,
according to supply chain expert
Professor Steve Evans of the University
of Cambridge. In the world of textiles
and apparel, circular manufacturing means a
system that retains and continues to use each
molecule, fibre or square-metre of fabric for as
long as these keep adding value.
He’s aware of examples that exist in the
outdoor industry already, Patagonia’s ‘Common
Threads’ programme being considered the most
famous. But he visits large numbers of
manufacturing companies across all sectors and
says the circular manufacturing “signal” is
growing, even it’s still small. Almost all factories
are still “enormously wasteful”, he insists. Supply
chain experts are famous for identifying waste
and demanding its elimination, like illicit-
substance-seeking sniffer dogs in an airport
terminal. Professor Evans, who is director of
research in industrial sustainability at the
university’s Institute for Manufacturing, bemoans
companies’ fixation with low labour costs. “In the
UK at least,” he says, “labour costs account for
only 10% of the total cost of production, whereas
materials, energy, water and so on account for
40%. And still management teams keeping
putting all their efforts into reducing labour costs.”
Deeper understanding
He explains that the manufacturing
companies that are implementing circular
manufacturing seem to him to have a deeper
understanding of their own products than most
of their competitors and are now taking that
Fast fashion will lose
in a circular world
A Zara pilot store. The
clothing retailer is a fast
fashion success story,
but Professor Steve
Evans regards fast
fashion as “the most
dangerous challenge of
our time”.
Inditex
There are exceptions, but most factories around the world are still, in the opinion of
Professor Steve Evans, director of research in industrial sustainability at Cambridge
University’s Institute for Manufacturing, “enormously wasteful”. At the same time, he says
consumers buying clothes they neither need nor really want are part of a “fast fashion
system”. All of this is unsustainable, he argues.
SUSTAI NAB I LITY: CI RCU LAR MAN U FACTU RI NG
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knowledge and turning it into value. “The
recycling industry loves opacity,” he says.
“Recycling companies make money because
manufacturers have no idea what their waste is
worth, and they do know. But the manufacturers
can make better use of that waste than the
recyclers can if they focus on total value and not
total cost, if they are willing to experiment and
learn quickly.”
Fibres and fabrics will run out
At a consumer level, the current system of
buying clothes we never use, or use for only a
few weeks, cannot be sustained, the professor
argues, not least because if we keep
accumulating clothing in the “hedonistic” way
of the western world today, it will only be a
matter of time before we run out of fibres and
fabrics with which to make it all, which would
represent what he calls “a stupid end-point”. He
goes further, referring to fast fashion as “the
most dangerous challenge of our time”
because consumers are spending money they
do not have to “buy into a fast fashion system”,
building up credit card debt. “We have carried
out a lot of analysis on this,” he says of his
research team at Cambridge; one of the pieces
of information this research has gleaned is that
the average consumer in the UK has 147 items
in his or her wardrobe, “and most just want a
bigger wardrobe”.
He urges all sports and outdoor brands, and
indeed all manufacturers, to find waste and turn
it into money. “Companies that lead the way are
already generating value, making money, from
waste, often with projects that are capital-cheap
but take brain-power and confidence,” he
explains. “And using waste to generate value is a
great way to get rich.”
Patagonia’s proof
His assessment of the ‘Common Threads’
programme is that it represents proof that
Patagonia knows it cannot sustain the old model.
‘Common Threads’ is a recycling scheme that
the outdoor brand launched in 2005, at first for
its 100% polyester Capilene baselayer garments,
but now including all types of garments. In the
first ten years of the programme, customers
deposited a collective total of well over 50
tonnes of clothing in special ‘Common Threads’
bins in Patagonia stores. He also expresses
admiration for other Patagonia initiatives such as
its commitment to repairing damaged jackets for
free and its famous Black Friday 2011 full-page
advertisement in the New York Times showing a
blue Patagonia jacket but urging consumers not
to buy it. All are part of a strategy that will
generate value for the company, Professor Evans
believes, through generating high volumes of
positive publicity and love of the brand, not least
on social media, rather than merely through
repeat sales. (Patagonia founder, Yvon
Chouinard, is on the record as saying that the
Black Friday 2011 jacket ended up being a
bestseller in any case).
Professor Steve Evans, leading in-depth
discussions on the future of apparel
manufacturing at the WFSGI Manufacturers’
Forum in December 2015 in Hong Kong.
World Federation of Sporting Goods Industry
33WSA March/April 2016
WSA Sustainability: Fast fashion will lose in a circular world
H&M, another clothing
retail success story,
created by demand for
fast fashion.
Hennes & Mauritz
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World Sports Activewear March/April 2016
“The recycling industry loves
opacity. Recycling companies make
money because manufacturers have
no idea what their waste is worth,
and they do know. But the
manufacturers can make better use
of that waste than the recyclers can
if they focus on total value and not
total cost, if they are willing to
experiment and learn quickly.”
Professor Steve Evans, director of
research in industrial sustainability,
Institute for Manufacturing,
Cambridge University

10. Thank you
for your attention
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11. The
Circular Economy
in the
Asia Pacific Region
www.circularecconomyasia.org