Spanish clothing giant Inditex, French biological recycling specialist Carbios, and French group Michelin are participating in the initiative titled Whiltecycle, a consortium of 16 European entities, both public and private.

Announced on August 9, the new gathering of businesses aims primarily to achieve the objectives set out by the European Union for 2030 concerning CO² emissions. The consortium predicts that, by the end of the decade, adopting circular solutions will make it possible to recycle over 2 million tons of PET (complex waste containing textiles) per year and to reduce local CO² emissions by two million tons.

The consortium has an overall global budget of €9.6 million and funding for Europe totaling close to €7.1 million. The business Michelin will be in charge of coordinating its operations and the group’s partners are based in five countries: France, Spain, Germany, Norway, and Turkey.

The consortium has highlighted four areas of innovation comprising the development of sorting technology for complex waste streams, pre-treatments and enzyme-based processes to sustainably decompose materials, the repolymerisation of recycled monomers into like new plastic, and the production and quality verification of new products made from recycled plastic.