For years, the global fashion industry has leaned on the promise of recycling as its escape hatch from a mounting environmental crisis. The vision is seductive: last season’s jeans reborn as this season’s T-shirt, a closed loop where waste is eliminated, and sustainability stitched into every seam. But a sobering new study from Denmark has thrown cold water on that dream, exposing the grand illusion of garment recycling.

The research, titled ‘Assessing the Circularity Potential of Textile Flows for Future Markets in Denmark: A Study of Textile Anatomy’, led by Heather Logan and her team, takes a forensic look at textile waste. What it uncovers is both startling and sobering: despite soaring ambitions, the volume of garments truly suitable for recycling is alarmingly small, and the system itself is fraught with inefficiencies, contaminants, and false hopes.

A tangled web of fibers

The study’s most eye-opening finding lies in the very anatomy of modern fashion. Researchers examined discarded garments from just one season in the Danish market and found over 600 different textile blends. From polyester mixed with elastane, to cotton woven with viscose, to wool spliced with synthetic trims, the sheer complexity makes recycling a logistical nightmare.

This ‘head-spinning variety’, as the researchers describe it, prevents recyclers from isolating fibers efficiently. While polyester makes up nearly 60 per cent of global fiber production, the Danish study found that only 6-7 per cent of discarded clothing is actually recoverable for chemical polyester recycling. The rest is too entangled in blends to be separated economically.

“Polyester may dominate global production, but the way it shows up in actual garments is messy and unpredictable,” the report notes. “The disconnect between production statistics and waste stream realities is vast.”

Recycling disrupted, the hidden villains

Even when fibers can theoretically be recovered, garments themselves often fight back. Zippers, buttons, foam padding, sequins, and trims what the study calls ‘recycling disruptors’ are everywhere. Each must be stripped away before recycling can even begin, a painstaking process that drives up costs and slashes efficiency.

Take men’s suits and overcoats. Laden with linings, interfacings, shoulder pads, and metallic fastenings, they are among the least recyclable garments. In contrast, simple t-shirts and sweaters, with fewer non-textile parts, are comparatively easier to process.

Yet the scale of the problem is daunting. The study warns that these disruptors don’t just slowdown recycling, they often render entire garments unusable. In many cases, recyclers face a choice: invest heavily in labor-intensive pre-processing or send the clothing straight to incineration.

Where waste really ends up

The Danish team’s Material Flow Analysis (MFA) paints a stark picture of garment end-of-life. Even under an idealistic scenario, where 80 per cent of discarded textiles are separately collected (far above the EU’s current 20 per cent average) the recycling yield remains limited.

• 45 per cent of textiles still end up incinerated, largely due to contamination or excessive complexity.

• 24 per cent are suitable for reuse in second-hand markets.

• Just 31 per cent are viable for material recycling.

Table: Projected textile waste fractions

Note: Danish market, idealistic 80% separate collection scenario

That final slice, roughly 30,000 tonnes per year in Denmark, is a meager feedstock for any large-scale recycling industry. Breaking it down by fiber type, the picture grows even murkier.

Table: Material available for recycling by fiber type

Far from being a single, steady stream, recycling feedstock is fragmented and dispersed making economies of scale nearly impossible without massive investments in sorting, logistics, and infrastructure.

The harsh lesson for circular fashion

The conclusions are hard to ignore: recycling garments is far more complicated than recycling materials like glass or paper. Contamination, non-textile disruptors, and fiber variety all combine to undercut efficiency and economics. “The promise of large-scale garment recycling has been oversold,” Logan and her team caution. “We must recognize that a recycling-based circular economy for textiles is unlikely to deliver at the scale the industry has hoped for.”

Instead, the researchers argue, fashion must look upstream. Avoidance and reuse should take precedence. While design for recycling can ease processing burdens, it should not come at the cost of garments’ primary purpose: functionality and durability.

A wake-up call for the industry

The Danish study doesn’t dismiss recycling altogether, but it delivers a crucial reality check at a time when brands are marketing circularity as a silver bullet. By grounding the debate in hard data rather than glossy sustainability reports, it forces fashion to confront the uncomfortable truth: recycling alone cannot solve the textile waste crisis. In fact, unless the industry tackles overproduction, embraces longer-lasting design, and incentivizes reuse, recycling may remain more illusion than solution.

As Europe prepares to implement stricter Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes for textiles in 2025, the findings carry particular weight. Policymakers, brands, and recyclers alike face the challenge of designing a system that acknowledges limits, rather than one built on wishful thinking. The message is clear: if fashion is to have a circular future, it will need far more than recycling bins and chemical plants. It will require a fundamental rethinking of how clothes are designed, consumed, and valued in the first place.