New Cotton - a circular cellulose based fiber

Over a 3,5 year period textile waste was collected, sorted and regenerated into a new man-made cellulose fiber that looks and feels lika cotton - a "new cotton" - by using Infinited Fiber Company's textle fiber regenerating technology. The new Infinna-fibers were used to create different types of fabric for clothing that was designed, produced and sold by the global brands adidas and companies in the H&M Group. The first garments was launched in September 2022 by adidas and H&M . 

RISE led the work regarding sustainability aspects which included lifecycle assessment  LCA) as well as techno-economic assessment (TEA) and social aspects (s-LCA) for the concept. The garments were evaluated according to OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 while the production was evaluated according to STeP by OEKO-TEX and Made in Green by OEKO-TEX.

The work to create the right conditions through policies and regulations was one important part of the circular transition. In cooperation with two other EU-projects (SCIRT och CISUTAC) a policy roundtable was organized during february 2023 in Brussels. Representatives from EU-policy makers and the commission, actors from different parts of the textile value chain and research institutes discussed the challenges and needs to enable scale-up of the textile recycling in Europe.
 

Read the lastest published paper from June 2024 - Life cycle assessment of a circular textile value chain: the case of a garment made from chemically recycled cotton