With growing issue of clothes piling up in landfills some textile companies have opted to create fashion in a circular model. Upcycling companies are testing groundbreaking fiber-recycling technology. The textile-to-textile, chemical-recycling technology separates and extracts the materials from old clothing, which is then re-spun into new yarns.

A T-shirt’s linear life span could be made circular since it could become reusable. By converting the reclaimed raw materials into yarn, creating new fabric and fashioning garments, these tests aim to demonstrate that the technology may be commercially viable, and may be able to provide an effective solution for the circular recycling of clothes and textiles. The process will not only provide an eco-friendlier means of sourcing raw materials for the fabrics companies use for garments, but also solve the problem of separating the materials of blended fiber clothes and removing dyes from polyester and cellulose.

Companies are becoming environmentally conscious and working to reduce the amount of waste that comes from textile industry. In the long run, this can change the way fashion is made and reduce the need for extracting virgin resources from the planet.