Material Sorting & Preprocessing and Recycling EXPERIMENTS

Call for expression of interest to sorting operators and preprocessors registered on Recycle platform in response to recyclers’ specifications

CLOSED – From 9 July to 23 September 2024

Refashion is launching a new Material Sorting & Preprocessing and Recycling Experiments campaign, to accelerate the development and further deploy post-consumer non-reusable textile and/or footwear sorting, preprocessing and recycling solutions in answer to recycler’s specifications. These experiments will contribute to prioritise the recycling processes to be industrialised in France and Europe.

The overall scope of the 2024 Material Preparation & Recycling Experiments covers:

For the sorting operators and preprocessors: sorting for recycling, material preparation, quality control and shipment of the material in response to a recycler’s specification;
For the recycler: at least, quality control of the material received and, if applicable, recycling testing and/or incorporation of recycled material into a finished or semi-finished product.

Specifications have been selected based on their feasibility and their potential for non-reusable post-consumer textiles and footwear. They are available for consultation via a secure Dropbox shared only with sorting operators and preprocessors registered on the Refashion Recycle platform. Under no circumstances may these specifications be transferred to third parties.

Refashion will finance the experiments based on budgeted costs and within the framework of an experiment agreement. To be eligible, an amendment to the specifications will have to be completed with the following information: description of the methodology used (sorting for recycling and material preprocessing operations if applicable) and detailed cost evaluation by item (labour, quality control, packaging, logistics). For an experiment to be launched, a minimum of 2 operators must have chosen the specifications.

In order to define an appropriate methodology and estimate costs as accurately as possible, we recommend that sorting operators and preprocessors carry out preliminary tests before completing the annexes. We also recommend consulting the Refashion Recycle platform to find a preprocessor if you wish to outsource certain material preprocessing operations.

The schedule includes a phase for identifying and selecting operators, followed by the experiment phase. The closing date for applications for this campaign is 23 September 2024.

Throughout the year, Refashion calls on the Refashion Recycle network to receive material sorting & preprocessing specifications (based on post-consumer non-reusable textiles and/or footwear) from recyclers, so to launch new Material Sorting & Preprocessing and Recycling Experiments campaigns.

Specifications can either target closed-loop applications (e.g. recycled fibres for yarn spinning; cellulosic pulp for melt-spinning) or open-loop applications (e.g. recycled fibres for nonwovens; rPET pellets for plastics). You can email us your proposals for specifications for a future campaign by filling in the following Excel documents: textile specifications or footwear specifications.*

We remain available for any questions or more information to build together your specifications: experimentations@refashion.fr

*Please be as complete and accurate as possible when completing this document. You can also add your own version or any additional documents that may be useful in understanding your needs.

**Please fill in one tab per specification in the Excel template if you have several specifications to propose.

To find out more, watch our webinar: