This article appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Plastics Recycling Update. Subscribe today for access to all print content.

In the past decade, we’ve seen a wave of textile recyclers emerge, such as Reju, Syre, Eastman, Evrnu, Ambercycle, Ravel, Protein Evolution, Teraform, SixOne, and others. These companies seek to fill a gap in textile recycling to meet rising demand for recycled fibers, which among other sustainable materials, is projected to soar five-fold to 163 million tons by 2030, according to the Textile Exchange. This demand is driven by a combination of corporate sustainability goals and impending policy.

Despite strong forecasted demand, recycled content in textiles is still very low, with the majority coming from recycled PET bottles. And because recycled bottle volumes are inelastic (since consumers are not very good at recycling), RPET is in limited supply and faces heavy competition from the packaging industry, which is striving to comply with recycled content mandates.

The shortage of RPET has sparked interest in finding alternative sources. Polyester textiles could offer a solution. After all, textile waste is growing quickly, and polyester is the dominant fiber in the market. To capture these polymers and recycle them in new fibers for textile production, chemical recycling techniques have shown promise at lab and pilot scale. While mechanical recycling is still preferable from a cost and energy perspective, its applications in textile-to-textile recycling are limited.

How much textile waste is available?

RRS and Fashion for Good conducted a fiber composition analysis of U.S. postconsumer textiles and found that over half are suitable for fiber-to-fiber recycling, meaning they are single-layer items with at least 80% purity of a given target fiber (cotton, polyester, nylon, or polycotton).

With Americans generating 80-100 lbs per capita per year and growing, that makes 6 million to 10 million tons per year of textiles suitable for chemical recycling. That said, we want to make sure textiles go to the best destination: Anything reusable is sent to reuse first, anything repairable is sent to repair, anything suitable for the reclaimed wiping cloth industry is sent for wiper conversion, and anything suitable for mechanical textile-to-textile recycling is mechanically recycled. These applications all fall higher on the waste hierarchy. The percentage that all of the above represents is unknown, so ultimately, the volumes available for chemical textile recycling are unknown.

Nevertheless, without a recycling end market for textiles, we cannot achieve circularity.

Scaling textile-to-textile recycling

This emerging market is rife with challenges. First, scaling these technologies requires significant investment. In 2024, Syre closed a Series A funding round of $100 million. Circ raised over $55 million in the past couple of years, and Ambercycle has received over $55 million in funding since its start in 2015. The technology R&D, industry buy-in and construction of pilot plants and commercial scale facilities are expensive. The high capex and yet-to-be-achieved economies of scale mean that pricing cannot compete against virgin raw materials.

Second, recycling facilities are most cost-effective at scale, which means they rely upon highly functional feedstock supply channels that can provide on-spec feedstock. In a landscape where textiles are primarily exported for sorting and grading, the requisite sorting and pre-processing infrastructure in the U.S. is lacking and therefore must either be developed, or the business case for an international textile-to-textile recycling market must be made. If sited domestically, textile recycling facilities ideally would draw textiles from local suppliers, which translates to the need to build automated fiber-sorting facilities. If sited abroad, textiles collected here must be shipped, and the shipment of so-called waste is being increasingly regulated, posing a potential risk to the ability to export it.

Third, as a first-of-a-kind solution, chemical recycling relies on the carefully timed curation of a new ecosystem. Chemical recyclers must prove their business models, demonstrate ability to move from lab scale to production scale, show that they can produce quality outputs capable of being integrated into existing textile manufacturing supply chains, and convince the public, regulators and nongovernmental organizations that their processes yield net positive environmental impact.

Finally, product sales in particular remain a puzzle. Integration of new fibers into the supply chain is difficult because it requires testing and iteration to ensure compatibility with existing manufacturing practices, and yarn spinners are often unable to accommodate the interruption of operations to test unproven sources of supply. Getting the brand involved can help ease this process, as brands may have the ability to influence the choice of Tier 4 suppliers down through the supply chain.

Policy as a market driver

The textile-to-textile recycling industry is in its infancy, and we need to be cognizant of the very real challenges it faces while also pushing for adoption. It can be compared to the plastics recycling industry three decades ago. In fact, chemical recycling technologies are not new. They’ve been around for years and in some cases decades. Until now, they have not had a viable business case in the plastics or textile recycling industries — and whether that changes with the onslaught of new circular economy policies, legislation and corporate mandates remains to be seen.

California’s Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (S.B. 707) is expected to shift market dynamics of used clothing and textiles in the U.S. by increasing collection rates, funding the development of sorting and processing infrastructure and incentivizing sustainable attributes like recycled content through eco-modulated fees. New York and Washington are both considering similar bills. Extended producer responsibility laws are also spreading across Europe. While EPR is a long game — the soonest we’ll see commercial impacts of EPR on the availability of textile-based recycled content is circa 2030 — it has significant potential to change incentives and unlock new business models.

Also relevant in the policy realm is how chemical recycling is being regulated. About half of the states in the U.S. regulate chemical recycling facilities as manufacturing facilities, which can ease the permitting process and hold the facilities accountable to the same environmental standards as other industrial facilities. In other states, there is contentious debate over the legal definition of recycling, whether it includes chemical recycling and, if so, which forms of chemical recycling it includes. This definition may affect whether textiles recycled this way count toward the state’s diversion rates, and whether the fibers produced by those recyclers can be counted as recycled content.

The road ahead

Despite the many challenges, timing seems to be right for textile-to-textile recycling. We’re just now thinking in a coordinated way about textile collection systems, just now starting to build the infrastructure and just now bringing all the right people to the table. Success requires coordinated efforts. Brands that prioritize design for end of life and uptake of recycled content will likely emerge as market leaders. Policymakers that work alongside the industry in developing smart and effective policy can create an enabling environment through legislation and funding. And supply chains that open their doors to recycled content can mitigate the risks of volatile raw commodity markets.

The topic is even attracting federal attention. In 2024, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of Maine alongside Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez from Washington and Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California launched the Slow Fashion Caucus, the first congressional group dedicated to implementing climate-smart policies to reduce, repair, reuse and recycle textiles. At the end of last year, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a landmark report on textile waste in the country. It recommended the establishment of an interagency mechanism to drive textile circularity and called on Congress to allocate resources and authority to tackle this growing issue effectively.

There are also efforts led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop standards to support textile circularity, demonstrated by their recently debuted NIR-SORT database, a tool that uses near-infrared spectroscopy to identify the molecular fingerprints of various fabrics, including blends.

Textile-to-textile recycling presents us with a unique opportunity to redefine the lifecycle of textiles and reduce the environmental impact of the fashion industry. We have a lot to look forward to as this new sector develops and evolves.

Marisa Adler is a senior consultant at Resource Recycling Systems and a leader in textile circularity consulting, advising public and private sector clients on sustainable textile management, policy and circular economy strategies.

This article appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Plastics Recycling Update. Subscribe today for access to all print content.

In the three decades since its first printing, the Association of Plastic Recyclers Design Guide, an instruction manual for calibrating plastic packaging to best suit reclaimers’ needs, has evolved from a basic list of dos and don’ts, patched together by a handful of PET companies, to an internationally cited online litmus test of PET, HDPE, PE and PP recyclability.

APR, the owner of this magazine’s publisher, is marking the guide’s 30th anniversary at the 2025 Plastics Recycling Conference later this month. The inaugural APR Recycling Leadership Awards will recognize packaging designers, manufacturers, researchers and innovators who have made significant contributions to the guide’s mission.

The recognition caps off years of both tinkering and overhauling, said APR Chief Operating Officer Curt Cozart, who has led those efforts for about a decade with continuous guidance from APR’s many technical committees of industry scientists and other experts.

One of the overarching goals when Cozart began was to make the guide simple and consistent. For example, earlier guide versions used a group of seemingly synonymous descriptions, such as “to be avoided” and “detrimental,” for certain shapes, resin characteristics and other design features of a bottle or jug.

“But it didn’t relate all the words to each other — was ‘to be avoided’ worse or better than ‘detrimental’?” Cozart said. He and his staff therefore condensed and formalized the guide into a few distinct categories: “APR preferred” for best practices, “non-recyclable” for unacceptable ones and “detrimental” for in-between characteristics that wouldn’t necessarily get a package thrown out but did make it more difficult to recycle.

“We tried to move it to where people wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting in that category,” Cozart said, and indeed, several packaging manufacturers seeking the recyclability green light have complained to him about a detrimental rating. “It’s doing exactly what it’s intended to do.”
The APR team also worked to expand the guide’s scope to account for the capabilities of materials recovery facilities, covering every step of the recycling process from sorting to remanufacture.

The guide’s latest online version, unveiled last fall, allows users to search among several varieties of PET, HDPE, PE and PP and hone in on aspects of a package that range from the mundane, such as color and labeling, to the technical, including resin melt flows and densities. It then provides acceptable baselines for each as well as testing protocols and referrals to testing laboratories.

Taken together, the guide gives a packaging maker the tools to either tweak an existing product or craft an ideal one from the ground up.

“We’ve really come a long way from this kind of paper encyclopedia thing,” Cozart said.
Take Kraft Heinz, which sits on APR’s PET technical committee. With APR’s guidance, the company stopped making the valves in the center of its ketchup bottle lids out of silicone, which was labeled detrimental because of its density, said Chris Max, the company’s sustainable innovation packaging lead.

“We transitioned with our partner to a TPE (thermoplastic elastomer) alternative — it still functions the same, but it now floats and it is compatible with the olefin recycling stream,” Max said.

One of the design guide’s biggest benefits is time-specific documentation of recyclability, he added, which is a major concern in the world of consumer packaged goods in an era of lawsuits over companies’ recycling claims.

“It’s definitely moving in the right direction; it’s easier to find things,” Max said of the guide’s latest interface, though he’d also like to see a smartphone app version someday.

The design guide’s also helpful for nudging customers in a more recycling-friendly direction, said Tim Bohlke, director of sustainability at Resource Label Group, a maker of package labels and wraps. The biggest brands are largely familiar with recyclability requirements, he said, but “there’s thousands of other customers out there that we need to educate.

“Here’s really the gold standard of products that you want to choose from,” he said of the design guide. And his customers have responded positively, moving closer to APR guidelines for items like Paul Mitchell’s line of hair products. “They care because they know their customers care, they know their retailers care.”

Along the same lines, the guide has taken on a life of its own as a third-party tool for assessment and compliance, Cozart said. California’s SB 343, which put limits on the usage of the chasing-arrows and other labeling for recyclability, explicitly references the guide, for instance. RecyClass, a European nonprofit advancing recyclability across the continent, has also worked to align its own guidelines with APR’s.

And that increased reach comes with a little more pressure — “both a good thing and a bad thing,” Cozart quipped. So the tinkering and improving continue. Improvements in the works include translating the guide into more languages and providing users with more detail when testing results in a failure.

“There is no ‘done.’ It is a living document,” said Cozart. “Who knows where it’s going to go?”

This article appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Plastics Recycling Update. Subscribe today for access to all print content.

2025 is a pivotal year for plastics recycling, where progress, promises and policies are set to collide. As companies reevaluate their long-standing commitments, policymakers push for new regulations and misinformation clouds public perception, recyclers must navigate a landscape filled with both challenges and opportunities. The question isn’t whether recycling works — it does — but whether the right choices will be made now to strengthen and expand it.

Here are five key trends that I believe will define plastics recycling in the year ahe

1. 30 Years of Smarter Design

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Association of Plastic Recyclers Design Guide for Plastics Recyclability, a milestone that underscores how critical design is to the success of plastics recycling (Editor’s note: See “The Design Guide Turns 30,” page 24). Since its introduction, the APR Design Guide has become the globally recognized standard for designing packaging that can be effectively recycled. It provides detailed, practical guidance for packaging designers and engineers to ensure their products are compatible with recycling systems and do not become contaminants.

Three decades ago, recyclability was often an afterthought in packaging design. A product’s appearance, marketing potential and shelf performance took precedence over its end-of-life recyclability. Today, however, more companies understand that designing for recyclability is essential to achieving their sustainability goals.

We’ve seen growing interest in our training programs, and we estimate that about 30% of plastics packaging today follows the APR Design Guide. That’s progress, but it’s not enough. Designing for recyclability is the first and most fundamental step in achieving a circular economy. If a package isn’t designed to be recyclable, it doesn’t matter how efficient our collection, sorting and processing systems are — it won’t get recycled.

In 2025, we expect to see more companies adopting the APR Design Guide as they work to meet their sustainability goals and comply with evolving regulatory requirements. We’ll also celebrate companies leading the way through our inaugural APR Recycling Leadership Awards, which will honor innovators who have demonstrated leadership to advance design for recyclability, developed new recycling technology, developed packaging to address recyclability challenges and increased their commitment to the utilization of post-consumer resin.

2. Too Much, Too Cheap

One of the most significant challenges we face in the plastics recycling industry is the oversupply of virgin plastic on a global scale. In recent years, petrochemical companies have significantly expanded their production capacity, saturating markets with low-cost virgin resin. This influx, coupled with imported material entering North America and Europe, has driven virgin resin prices to historically low levels.

This price pressure creates a major hurdle for recycled content. PCR often costs more to produce than virgin resin, largely due to the infrastructure, labor and processes involved in collecting, sorting and reprocessing materials. When virgin plastic is sold at extremely low prices, it disincentivizes companies from using recycled materials, regardless of their stated sustainability commitments.

Compounding this issue is the need for reliable, high-quality PCR. This is where APR’s PCR Certification Program plugs in to ensure that recycled content is truly post-consumer and meets stringent quality standards. This program helps build trust in PCR markets, giving companies the confidence to invest in sustainable sourcing despite fluctuating virgin resin prices.

In 2025, the industry must work toward decoupling PCR pricing from virgin resin costs. Policy interventions like minimum recycled content requirements and tax incentives can help level the playing field, ensuring that PCR materials remain viable even when virgin resin prices drop. Global oversupply of virgin plastic isn’t going away overnight, but smart policy decisions combined with programs like APR’s PCR Certification can mitigate its impact.

3. Fallout for Walking Back Commitments

The year 2025 has long been a key target for corporate sustainability commitments, particularly regarding the use of PCR content. Over the past decade, dozens of brands have publicly pledged to increase recycled content in their packaging, with many aiming to meet specific goals by 2025. However, as the deadline looms, we’re seeing some companies retreat from those promises.

These pullbacks create ripple effects across the recycling value chain. Recyclers have invested in infrastructure to meet the anticipated demand for recycled plastics. When companies reduce or delay their commitments, that infrastructure becomes underutilized, which jeopardizes future investments and stalls the development of circular systems.

Customers consistently express a preference for recyclable packaging and expect brands to follow through on their environmental commitments. Additionally, using PCR helps companies reduce their carbon footprint and meet corporate social responsibility goals. So why are companies backing away? The answer often boils down to cost. As described earlier, recycled material carries a price premium compared to virgin resin. For recycling to succeed, that premium must be viewed not as an unnecessary expense but as an investment in sustainability.

In 2025, brands must recognize that inconsistent demand weakens the entire system. Long-term contracts for PCR content can provide recyclers with the market stability they need to continue expanding capacity. Without this commitment, the industry risks stagnating just when it needs to grow.

4. The Misinformation Battle

There is no question that misinformation and disinformation about plastics recycling have grown into major obstacles. In recent years, we’ve witnessed a concerted effort to undermine public confidence in recycling, often driven by groups advocating for the complete elimination of plastics. Ironically, these attacks target one activity — recycling — that demonstrably reduces the need for virgin plastic production and mitigates environmental harm.

The impact of this misinformation is evident in public opinion data. Just five years ago, around 15% of consumers questioned whether their recyclables were truly recycled. Today, that figure has more than doubled. This growing doubt has tangible consequences: When consumers lose confidence in recycling, they don’t stop buying plastic, they just stop putting it in the recycling bin.

The facts tell a different story. Plastics recycling in the U.S. diverts more than 5 billion pounds of material annually, delivering significant environmental benefits like reduced greenhouse gas emissions and energy savings. We also have the capacity to double that volume if more material is properly collected and sorted.

In 2025, APR will continue to push back against misinformation. We are committed to providing accurate, science-based information to policymakers, industry leaders and community programs. Restoring trust in recycling is essential if we want to build a truly circular economy for plastics.

5. States Take the Lead

In recent history, activity on recycling at the federal level has been limited. But states are filling the void to address plastics recycling challenges. Extended producer responsibility programs that shift financial burdens to producers are gaining momentum across the U.S. This structure provides a direct incentive for companies to design more recyclable packaging and invest in recycling systems.

However, not all EPR programs are created equal. Many initial frameworks focus heavily on the supply side — improving collection and processing systems — but overlook the equally critical demand side. Without mechanisms like minimum recycled content requirements, EPR efforts may fall short of their intentions.

APR has long supported policies that foster both supply and demand growth. In 2025, we anticipate more states adopting EPR legislation, particularly as early adopters like California, Colorado and Maine demonstrate tangible results. Our role will be to help shape these programs to ensure they create meaningful, long-term market signals for recycled content.

Looking Ahead: A Year of Opportunity

Plastics recycling is not just at a crossroads — it is on the brink of transformation. In 2025, we have the opportunity to drive real change by mobilizing smarter design, inspiring corporate leadership and building public trust. The challenges ahead are real, but so is the momentum we’ve built.

At APR, we are leading the charge. For 30 years, our APR Design Guide has set the standard for packaging innovation. Our PCR certification program ensures integrity in recycled content, and our advocacy efforts continue to push for policies that create real, lasting impact. We know what works, and we are committed to expanding solutions that make plastics recycling more effective, efficient and accessible.

A circular economy isn’t just possible — it’s within reach. Success will require industry collaboration, bold thinking and tireless effort. Together, I am confident that we can make 2025 a breakthrough year for plastics recycling.

Steve Alexander is president & CEO of the Association of Plastic Recyclers, which owns Resource Recycling, Inc.

Bill O’Grady — a former board member and influential chairman of the Association of Plastic Recyclers, a current board member of Resource Recycling, a longtime executive at California recycling company Talco Plastics and, according to him, a man who wandered into the industry decades ago essentially by accident — is possibly, probably, most likely retiring this year.

“I’d like to say that. I’ve planted that seed as far back as, I’d say, maybe three years ago, and I’m still here,” O’Grady said during an interview in February. He was in the thick of regulatory reporting and other duties he felt obligated to see through to the end. But the chance to travel and spend more time with his three grandchildren beckoned.

“I’d like to be doing a lot less by the summer months,” he said, though he might make periodic appearances a few times a year after that. “It’d be hard for me to admit that I’m going to leave the plastics community entirely.”

Steve Alexander, APR president and CEO, said as chairman, O’Grady led APR’s transition from a volunteer organization to a professionally managed one, which included Alexander’s hiring in 2005. Alexander called him “an icon in plastics recycling” and mentor whose vision made APR into an internationally recognized trade association. (APR owns Resource Recycling, Inc.)

“You could argue he’s one of the very few people who are responsible for the plastic recycling industry to be where it is today,” Alexander said. “No one has done more to advance the cause of plastics recycling.”

O’Grady had a knack for building consensus even among competitors, as many APR members are, said J. Scott Saunders, general manager at KW Plastics Recycling Division in Alabama and another APR board member. He said the ability to herd cats was essential to APR’s carrying on through its split from the American Chemistry Council.

“Without Bill’s leadership, I believe the whole organization would have stumbled and fallen apart,” Saunders told Resource Recycling. “We’re going to miss him, man, and the industry is going to be very different without him.”

Nicole Janssen, president of Denton Plastics in Oregon and a member of the APR and Resource Recycling boards, said O’Grady has always been someone whom she looked up to and who shared long discussions about the industry’s values and outlooks.

“He has helped me to grow as an industry leader,” she wrote in an email. “I’m proud to call him a friend as well.”

Looking back, looking ahead

Before his rise to APR’s heights, O’Grady was studying veterinary medicine and other sciences in college, he said. Then his family bought a small recycling company in Santa Ana, California, and asked him to help run it. He agreed, settled in, and when the opportunity came along to turn back to the veterinary field, he let it pass by.

“I kind of got into recycling by default,” O’Grady said. “I felt a sense of accomplishment because I was doing something that I actually believed in.”

Years later, in 1995, he moved on to Talco, an extruder and pelletizer focused primarily on polystyrene and polyolefins, where O’Grady serves as vice president and general manager overseeing the company’s post-consumer division in Long Beach and its Corona facility. O’Grady joined the APR board shortly after.

“Certainly, the landscape has changed over my tenure,” O’Grady said of the industry. “It’s gone from a very fledgling, nondescript environment to a very succinct and structured environment—in terms of public perspective, industry perspective, brand owner perspective, consumer product perspective.”

With that maturation, however, have come challenges that must be addressed, he said:

• Chemical recycling

“The biggest challenge today of course would probably be the relationship with chemical recycling versus mechanical recycling, and how that relates to the sustainability of the industry overall,” O’Grady said.

“It needs to prove itself,” he went on, so that the benefits of chemical and mechanical approaches can be weighed and compared. The Recycling Partnership took a similar tack in its February position statement on the burgeoning industry, which has drawn skepticism from a wide range of recycling and environmental groups.

“We need more clarity, and the chemical recyclers need to be accountable,” O’Grady said.

• Dollars and sense of PCR

O’Grady also pointed to the fluctuating market dynamics of post-consumer resin, which has become more appealing to brands with high-profile sustainability targets but often comes with a higher price tag or other challenges.

“We’re facing the need to continually promote the value and use of PCR across the board,” he said, including by emphasizing that this value stretches beyond cost savings. “There’s no simple solution to that, obviously, but the end user has to come to grips with the fact that post-consumer materials do not compete very well with virgin resin.”

• Changing infrastructure

On a related point, O’Grady said that as a materials reclaimer he’s seen firsthand the gap between collection infrastructure and rising PCR demand. He pointed to moves by waste hauling companies like WM and Republic Services to extend their reach further down the post-consumer chain as a potential game-changer.

“It remains to be seen” what impact those investments will have on the plastic recycling industry overall, he said. “It could alter the landscape considerably in terms of sourcing product for post-consumer application.”

• Plastic recycling’s reputation

The very concept of plastic recycling and its motivations increasingly have come under fire, echoing the pushback that helped spark the original plastic recycling push decades ago. Critics point to the global environmental footprint of all plastic production and the enormous variety of polymers that recycling at scale has failed to capture—the “fraud of plastic recycling,” as a widely cited report from the Center for Climate Integrity recently put it.

O’Grady said misinformation and misinterpretation are painting a negative picture of his industry, which “can diminish the value of plastic recycling and the use of plastic material.”

“We need to proactively advocate the benefits of plastics and plastic recycling rather than react to the flavor of the day, so to speak,” he said. “And I think we need to dispel some of this negativity or some of this fear of using plastics.

“I don’t think in my lifetime we’re going to get rid of plastic,” O’Grady added. “It’s here to stay. It’s not going anywhere.”

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Plastics Recycling Update. Subscribe today for access to all print content.