Specialty polyester supplier Selenis and textile recycling company Syre are collaborating to create a textile-to-textile recycling facility in Cedar Creek, North Carolina. The plant, which is scheduled to be operational in mid-2025, is estimated to deliver up to 10,000 metric tons of circular polyester annually.
Syre launched in March with the goal of establishing multiple textile-to-textile gigascale plants producing circular polyester around the world. The circular polyester produced at these facilities is estimated to reduce CO2 emissions by 85 percent as opposed to oil-based virgin polyester production.
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“This is truly an important milestone on our journey to drive the great textile shift, with more than two years of planning now moving into action,” said Dennis Nobelius, CEO, Syre. “We call this establishment a Blueprint Plant since the work there will lay the foundation for Syre’s continued global expansion, with the process being mirrored and scaled up in our upcoming gigascale plants globally.”
Selenis already operates a production plant in Cedar Creek, and Syre will build an adjoining facility to create a continuous production flow. The facilities will house everything from pre-processing depolymerization to polymerization and PET-chip production.
“When scouting locations for our plants, we have to carefully balance critical factors such as renewable energy, infrastructure, cost, and access to feedstock,” Nobelius said. “I am really excited to partner with the Selenis team, having a similar sustainability direction and ambition to drive green transformation at scale.”
The push for circular polyester has increased with brands such as Inditex, Patagonia and H&M Group—which commited $600 million to material produced by Syre—making significant investments in the material. But a lack of commercial-scale production for circular polyester has been a hindrance, and Eduardo Santos, head of corporate strategy at Selenis, says he sees this facility as a solution to that problem.
“As the two companies move through this exciting journey in tackling the impact of textile waste and the problems that it creates, together we have a vision of an innovation hub for textile recycling, paralleled with R&D investment,” he said. “(We have) the specific focus of being leading recyclers supporting the textile industry in becoming more sustainable – creating a unique space where pre-poly, de-poly and polymerization happen all in the same site.”
Textile-to-textile recycling accounted for less than 1 percent of regenerated material in 2022, according to sustainability trade group Textile Exchange. Duarte Gil, CEO of Selenis, said he sees the collaboration with Syre as a way to up that number in a significant way in the future.
“The partnership is a strong statement in driving innovation in advanced recycling technologies that deliver real-world sustainability solutions and importantly a positive impact on the life-cycle assessment of final products,” he said. “We are excited about this journey with Syre as it also allows us to further invest in the US market with existing asset expansion and bring the benefits of new technologies closer to customers.”
