Fashion for Good Launches Project to Scale Recycled Cotton Yarn

According to industry reports, Fashion for Good has launched the Cotton Reloop Matrix Project to assess commercially available recycled cotton yarns against brand quality requirements and identify how recycled content, price and performance affect commercial adoption. The initiative brings together industry partners to build a shared evidence base for recycled cotton across knitted and woven textile applications.

The project includes fashion brands and manufacturers BESTSELLER, C&A, Interloop, Reformation, Arvind and Shahi, alongside ecosystem partner Uster, which will contribute spinning and yarn-testing expertise. Fashion for Good aims to compare recycler capabilities with brand specifications and identify where recycled cotton can be used commercially without compromising product requirements.

Mechanical recycling is one route for converting cotton-rich textile waste into new yarn. The process shreds and reopens waste into fibers that can be spun again, but it also shortens and weakens the fibers. Fashion for Good says only 45% to 50% of the input material remains usable after processing, while the shorter fibers limit the proportion that can be blended into new yarn. According to the project announcement, recycled cotton content in many yarns is consequently limited to around 10%.

The initiative aims to address the lack of comparable data between recyclers and brands. Rather than assessing recycled blends solely against the standards for 100% virgin cotton, the project will examine whether recycled fibers meet the requirements of specific product applications and where additional processing could improve performance.

The work will proceed along two tracks. Fashion for Good will first develop a Quality Matrix comparing available recycled cotton yarns with brand requirements across knit and woven categories. Selected recyclers and partners will then produce 10 demonstrator fabrics and conduct five quality-augmentation trials under industrial production conditions to evaluate trade-offs among recycled content, price and quality.

Findings from the trials will inform an open-source standard operating procedure for spinning recycled cotton and a Roadmap for Cotton Circularity. The roadmap is intended to identify the data and operational standards needed to support wider adoption across product categories and regions.

Fashion for Good managing director Katrin Ley said fragmented data and isolated testing have hindered progress in scaling recycled cotton. Reformation senior director of raw materials Nikki Player said a shared reference point could help brands and recyclers increase recycled content while maintaining fabric quality and hand-feel.

The project comes as textile companies seek ways to recover more material from textile waste, but recycled cotton remains constrained by fiber quality, processing losses and cost-performance requirements. The initiative is designed to give brands and recyclers a common basis for evaluating where recycled cotton can be used at commercial scale.

Source: Fashion for Good

SUNSHINE Spotlight: Fashion for Good’s Cotton Reloop Matrix Project will test recycled cotton yarns and fabrics against industry requirements, with 10 demonstrator fabrics and five trials aimed at clarifying trade-offs among recycled content, quality and price.