Companies are finding ways to improve the impact of their operations and products on the environment. The EU has developed a variety of initiatives, including the Circular Economy Action Plan and the Single-Use Plastics Directive. The initiatives emphasise upcycling, recycling, resource efficiency and reclamation.

Indorama Ventures has formed a joint venture with Loop, which may prove to be the biggest contributor to the development of a circular economy within the textile industry, and is poised to take the recycling of polyethylene therephthalate PET fibre-based products to the next level.

The joint venture—which has received backing from global giants such as Coca Cola, Danone, Evian, L’Oreal and Pepsi—makes use of Loop Industries’ technology, which allows plastics of little or no value to be diverted, recovered and recycled endlessly into new virgin quality PET.

PrimaLoft has launched a new product made from 100 per cent recycled PET which biodegrades when exposed to microbes in landfill or ocean water. However, it remains highly durable throughout its usable life cycle. The company expects 90 per cent of its insulation products to incorporate 50 per cent post-consumer recycled content by 2020. The global textile industry produces around 60 million tons of waste annually. Of this only 32 per cent is reused or recycled.