Unifi Pledges to Recycle the Equivalent of 1.5 Billion T-shirts
North Carolina-based fiber producer Unifi has committed to recycling 1.5 billion T-shirts’ worth of textile and yarn waste by 2030.
The company is expanding its Textile Takeback program over the course of the next six years with the goal of effectively doubling its output, it announced this week. Since the pre-consumer and industrial textile waste recycling program launched officially 17 years ago, Unifi has recycled roughly 750 million T-shirts’ worth of polyester material.
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Known chiefly for its signature fiber, Repreve, which is made from recycled plastic bottles, Unifi also reiterated its commitment to divert 50 billion plastic bottles from landfills by December 2025, having reached a milestone of 38 billion bottles in fiscal 2023. But the group has also developed the infrastructure and capacity for global textile and yarn waste recycling, and is keen to expand its circular offering.
“As a company, we’re agnostic as to what kind of polyester input we use to make a recycled yarn—whether it’s bottles, yarn waste or fabric waste,” CEO Eddie Ingle told Sourcing Journal.
“We want to help brands and consumers understand that it’s not just about bottles; we can take the equivalent amount of yarn waste and fabric waste and scraps from the cutting room floor and turn it back into a textile product,” he explained. The firm struggled to find a unit of measurement that would click with consumers and brands the same way plastic bottles have, and settled on T-shirts—a staple product everyone has in their wardrobe—to illustrate the scope of the project.
Unifi relaunched its Textile Takeback program in 2022, and interest has ramped up over the past two years as brands look to incorporate more sustainable and circular materials into their portfolios, Ingle said. “In our industry, we need the support of the brands, and I think by declaring this goal, we’re going to get a lot of questions around what it exactly means and how they can participate.”
The program is globally run, with much of the company’s recycling of pre-consumer yarn waste taking place at its facilities in Yadkinville, N.C. Meanwhile, the textile waste supply comes from the markets where much of the world’s fabric and apparel production takes place, from Asia to Central America and South America. “We like to use waste where it’s created, so we have a higher percentage of yarn waste being consumed here and turned back into fiber, and in Asia, we’ll have a higher percentage of fabric waste being consumed and turned back into fiber,” the executive said.
The program’s next phase will involve mobilizing the industry for post-consumer textile takeback. Ingle said efforts around collection and sortation are further along in Europe than they are in other markets like the U.S. “You have a lot of brands who have dipped a toe into this space and they are trying to figure out how they can be part of the solution,” he said.
There are some limitations to Unifi’s textile recycling platform—most importantly, that it relies on pure, 100-percent polyester feedstock. The group continues to work through the kinks associated with recycling material treated with different dyes, coatings and finishes in order to bring it back to a material that performs similarly to virgin polyester. The program relaunched two years ago with a black staple fiber, and released a white version last year.
Ingle said he believes there’s plenty of opportunity for pure polyester recycling. Textile Exchange estimates that polyester makes up 80 percent of all synthetic fiber use, the equivalent of tens of billions of pounds of garments and production scraps.
Unifi is also rapidly expanding its production capabilities surrounding the reclaimed waste. While the program launched with the production of easier-to-produce staple fibers, which are shorter and often blended with other fibers and yarns to ensure their viability, fully recycled filament yarns are on the horizon, he said.
“The process for creating filament yarns is much more critical, much more difficult,” he added. The company achieved a breakthrough with the launch of filament yarns made from plastic bottles, and over the course of the coming years, Ingle said it aims to do the same with textile waste.
One of the country’s most prominent textile innovators, Unifi is full speed ahead on expanding its circular offering. And in the wake of the news that Scandinavian textile-to-textile recycler Renewcell declared bankruptcy this week, Ingle said he’s nonetheless bullish about the prospects for next-generation recycled materials.
“Renewcell was very disappointing news for the industry, for all of us who have watched and rooted for them,” he said. “Perhaps they were ahead of their time, but I do think it is going to force brands to understand they might have to pay a bit more as these technologies are developed further.” Ingle posited that the company’s collapse might be a “canary in the coal mine,” signaling to the industry that its wholehearted buy-in is required in order to advance solutions with the power for change. “The fact is that they have to support industries that are pushing the envelope when it comes to generating new offerings.”
Ingle said he believes the sector’s appetite remains strong, partially bolstered by the promise of new regulations around sustainability. Unifi itself announced a commitment to reduce its Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity by 30 percent by 2030, which it will drive partially through investments in more energy efficient machinery. It has also pledged to zero out its non-compliant water discharges annually according to local, state, and national regulations or permitting.
Brands, like producers, are being called upon to mitigate their environmental impact, and they’re looking to their supply chains for help. At the Premiere Vision show in Paris this month, Unifi fielded a barrage of questions from firms looking to tap into a more circular way of doing business. “The whole conversation was around circularity, and what we can do to help them turn their dreams and aspirations into reality,” he said.
