1. A New Circular Economy Concept
Full title of project - A new circular economy concept: from textile waste towards chemical and textile industries feedstock

2. Project Vision
Europe must move towards circular economy to conserve its future environment & society
Innovative recycling & synthesis of expertise needed
Better REcycling to generate new secondary raw materials
Through SYNthesis, project combines various fields
TEXtile waste – a resource for textiles & chemicals
Through an innovative recycling process and synthesis of expertise, textile waste is transformed into secondary raw materials, creating circularity and reducing environmental impact.
1. Better recycling generates new secondary raw materials which in turn allows society to move towards a more circular economy
2. Through synthesis, the project combines the expertise of various fields (industry, research, specialists, etc) to form a connected whole and put innovation into practice
3. Textile waste (post-production and post-consumer) is a resource that RESYNTEX will process for the textile and chemical industry
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3. Key Information
€11 million research project €166 billion sector (EU) Uses industrial symbiosis Models complete value chain 42 months
RESYNTEX is a €11 million research project with the core objective to create a new circular economy concept for the textile and chemical industries. Over €8 million from Horizon 2020
The Directorate-General (DG) for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs estimates that the textiles and clothing sector employs 1.7 million people and produces a turnover of €166 billion, playing an important role in the European manufacturing industry
Working together on this project, the project partners use industrial symbiosis to create an effective model for a complete value chain
RESYNTEX started in June 2015 and will run for 42 months, until December 2018 – less than a year into the project so obviously we can’t talk about much right now
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4. Partners
RESYNTEX has 20 project partners - linking traditionally separate or independent stakeholders across research and the value chain
From across 10 different EU member states
Partners include industrial associations, businesses, SMEs and research institutes
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5. Project Aims Strategic design for value chain
Improve collection approaches & public awareness
Enable traceability & credibility of waste processing
Innovative business models for chemicals & textiles
Demonstrate a complete reprocessing line
Core project aims are:
Create a strategic design for a complete value chain from textile waste collection through to the generation of new feedstock for chemicals and textiles
Improve collection approaches and increase public awareness of and social involvement with the issue of textile waste – project will focus on non-wearable wool, polyester, polyamide & cotton
Enable traceability of waste processing using data aggregation. The collected data will evaluate the performance of the new value chains by means of a life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC), compared to existing end-of-life scenarios
Develop innovative business models for the chemical and textile industries
Demonstrate a complete reprocessing line for basic textile components, including liquid and solid waste treatment
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6. Ten Work Packages The work packages are:
WP 1 will layout the strategic design and include scenarios for commercially successful and societally beneficial textile-chemistry partnerships
WP 2 aims to improve waste collection approaches, particularly for non-wearable textiles, by encouraging behavioural change. It will analyse stakeholders, promote recycling and enable greater social awareness and involvement
WP 3 will look to process textile waste as a suitable feedstock for recycling. This process must be suitable for a mechanical production line, sorting multicomponent waste and preparing it for recycling
WP 4 will outline an environmentally-friendly process for the transformation of natural and synthetic waste fibres into feedstock intermediates
WP 5 aims to develop industrial applications for the recovered feedstock from work package 4. Activities will involve end-users and experts, allowing effective exploitation of feedstock
WP 6 will produce process designs and flow sheets for RESYNTEX at full scale. It will address all recovery stages needed for a single plant
WP 7 will demonstrate the RESYNTEX concept in an industrial environment and aims to develop a demo-scale pilot plant
WP 8 will use state-of-the-art environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) to evaluate the performance of the new textile waste recycling value chains. It aims to guide the design and development of the value chains towards more sustainable solutions
WP 9 is the communications and dissemination programme
Project management is handled by work package 10
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7. Why? Helps industry to reduce its environmental impact
New chemical feedstock & state-of-the-art products
Public demand
Increases public awareness & enables public to recycle
Informs governing bodies & policymakers on circular economy
Why does this matter?
Through education, analysis and awareness outreach carried out by RESYNTEX, citizens will benefit because it will make it easier for the public to recycle unwearable textiles and play their part in reducing textile waste.
The desired impact is to enable non-wearable textile waste to become a resource.
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8. RESYNTEX will model production as a closed loop.
By moving towards a more circular production process, the textile industry can reduce its environmental impact. For instance, less waste will be landfilled.
The project’s research and findings will also help improve the resource efficiency of the textile industry and reduce its waste.
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9. Summary Helps EU towards circular economy
Uses innovative recycling & industrial symbiosis
Complete value chains for textiles & chemicals
Global benefits beyond EU
Demand is growing for a more circular economy. RESYNTEX is revolutionary because it integrates various stakeholders into a circular economy and will make an ambitious theoretical concept a reality. It can also function as a pioneer for the transition of other industries towards a more circular economy.
Visit the RESYNTEX website to find further information and download project material.
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10. Richard Delahay Sustainability Consult
Thank you. Any questions?
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