Wrong direction
Global fibre production reached a record figure in 2023, but recycled fibres contributed only 7.7% to the total.
Preferred materials and standardisation non-profit Textile Exchange published its 2024 Materials Market Report at the end of September. The report shines a stark light on the unrelenting pace of growth in global fibre production and on the relatively small role that recycled fibres still play.
One headline finding is that global fibre production in 2023 reached 124 million tonnes in volume, a 7% increase on the figure for the previous year. Textile Exchange warns that if current trends continue, the figure will reach 160 million tonnes in 2030. It says the 2023 figure was a record and represented a doubling of global fibre production volumes since the start of the century. In truth, volumes are now more than double what they were in 2000; the figure Textile Exchange gives for that year is a volume of 58 million tonnes. The organisation has calculated that, if distribution were equal, people in 1975 would have had a share of 8.3 kilos of fibre each. This has now increased to 15.5 kilos per person, not quite double, but close to it.
Polyester sets the pace
The production of polyester reached 71 million tonnes in 2023, an increase of more than 12.5% year on year. Textile Exchange says that polyester alone accounted for 57% of total fibre production and is, by some margin, the most widely produced fibre in the world. This has been the case for some time, but the gap between polyester and the rest is widening.
In 2007, when Textile Exchange launched (it had previously worked as Organic Exchange with a focus exclusively on organic cotton), the then technical director of fibre manufacturer Invista, Dr Bob Kirkwood, calculated, from what he called the best information available to him at the time, that polyester’s share of the fibre market then was 46%. It was already well ahead of cotton; he put cotton’s share then at 38%, a figure that has since fallen sharply.
A growing gap
According to Textile Exchange’s figures, cotton now accounts for only 20% of global fibre production, with volumes of 24.4 million tonnes in the 2022-2023 season (August-July). This figure represents a decline of 2.8% compared to the 2021-2022 cotton season. As the Materials Market Report points out, weather conditions, farmers’ preferences and socio-political challenges can all cause variations in the global cotton crop. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that 24.6 million tonnes will be the figure for 2023-2024 and its early-stage projection for 2024-2025 is 25.4 million tonnes. USDA usually reports cotton volumes in bales, a unit of measurement that means different things in different markets. However, its reports helpfully confirm that, for USDA, one bale is equivalent to 480 kilos, allowing us to make this comparison with Textile Exchange’s numbers. The main point is that the figures for cotton go up and down, but are now a long way behind polyester’s share of the market.
Polyamide is the second-most used synthetic fibre in the global market. Its share in 2023 was 5% of the total, more than Dr Kirkwood’s 2007 figure of 3%. Polyamide volumes in 2023 were 6.7 million tonnes. Production of manmade cellulosic fibres (MMCF), including viscose, acetate, lyocell, modal and cupro, reached a combined total of 7.9 million tonnes in 2023, up by 6.3% compared to the previous year. Their share of the total is 6%. Wool is in the mix too, of course, with 1 million tonnes of fibre coming onto the market last year according to the report, giving wool a market-share of 0.9%.
Across the piece, synthetic fibres of all kinds had a share of 67% of the global market in 2023. Plant fibres, a list that includes hemp, flax, jute, sisal, kapok and others, as well as cotton, accounted for 25% in all. Other animal fibres (silk is the most obvious example) add very little to the figure for wool, reaching a 1% share overall. MMCF made up the rest of the picture.
Hard to digest
Perhaps the toughest part of the report to read is the section that covers recycling. “After years of growth,” Textile Exchange says, “the market share of recycled fibres decreased in 2023.” Together, all recycled fibres had a 7.7% share of the market last year; the figure for the year before was 7.9%. The difference is small, but the direction of travel is a cause for concern, especially for some parts of the recycled fibre supply chain.
Within each category, the percentages of the different fibres that Textile Exchange reports as being recycled are around 12.5% for polyester, 6% for wool, 3% for elastane, 2% for polyamide, 1% for cotton, 0.7% for MMCF, 0.6% for acrylic and 0.3% for polypropylene.
Polyester’s numbers look substantial at 12.5% of the fibre’s total; the non-profit says 7% of all the fibres that came onto the market in 2023 were recycled polyester fibres. However, recycled’s share of total polyester production was higher in 2022 at 13.6%. Almost all of the recycled polyester that came onto the market in 2023 (Textile Exchange says 98% of it) came from plastic bottles. Between 2022 and 2023, the production volume of fibres made from virgin fossil-based resources increased by almost 12%.
Cotton choices
If, at 1%, cotton has a low figure for recycled fibres, there are other ways for apparel brands sourcing cotton to present their choices as ‘more sustainable’. There are programmes that farmers in all cotton-growing regions can join. As we saw in the report on cotton that campaign group Earthsight published in April this year, joining a programme is not, in itself, enough to make sustainability claims convincing.
According to the new Materials Market Report, 8% of all the cotton grown in season 2022-2023 came from the Better Cotton programme, with 11% coming from its Brazilian equivalent, ABR. Other examples include Australia’s myBMP programme, which accounted for around 2% of global cotton production that season, and Cotton Made in Africa, which also had 2%. Textile Exchange does not give a figure for organic cotton, but lists several organic labels among nine “other cotton programmes” that, together, had a share of 7% of the total. Across the piece, this collective of sustainable cotton initiatives contributed 29% of the complete crop in 2022-2023.
Too few new fibres from recycled textiles
To return to recycling, there is a further layer of concern. In 2023, according to the new report, fibres from recycled pre- or post-consumer textiles constituted less than 1% of the global market, which means less than 1.25 million tonnes. This figure is for all fibres.
There were 8.9 million tonnes of recycled polyester, but, as mentioned above, Textile Exchange estimates that only 2% of this, which is around 175,000 tonnes, came from textile-to-textile recycling. Ocean-bound and ocean-found plastics have generated good publicity, but in 2023, these sources provided only around 0.01% of all recycled polyester, 890 tonnes. Compared to estimates that campaign group the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has formulated, showing that, by 2040, there could be 29 million tonnes of plastic entering the oceans of the world each year, 890 tonnes is, to state the obvious, a drop in the ocean.
The 2024 Materials Market Report makes valid points about how long it is taking to build systems for polyester textile-to-textile recycling. It explains: “The proliferation of textiles made from fibre blends poses significant challenges when it comes to recycling post-consumer textile waste. This is because of the labour-intensive separation process for different fibre types and the different conditions required for chemical and mechanical recycling.” On a hopeful note, it adds that there are some innovative start-ups working on solutions to make high-value fibre blend recycling possible. (See article in this issue of WSA about the work of the CETIA research centre in France for a good example of this.) There are also indications of brands increasingly favouring monomaterial fabrics to make their garments more recyclable. Perhaps this augurs well for an increase in textile-to-textile recycling of polyester apparel in the years ahead.
Twenty years later
However, the report also makes the point that if the price of virgin fossil-based synthetics stays low, these fibres will remain popular among sourcing professionals. This is as true today as it was when Patagonia launched the Common Threads Recycling Programme almost 20 years ago. It was in 2005 that the outdoor brand, in partnership with fibre group Teijin, began asking customers to send back their worn baselayer garments for transformation into recycled fibres and then into new clothing. The partners’ calculations at the time put the savings on offer at a 76% reduction in energy and a 71% reduction in carbon emissions compared to using virgin fibres.
They must, surely, have imagined that, nearly two decades later, textile-to-textile recycling’s share of the global fibre market would have nudged above 1%.
Garments from Ternua’s spring-summer 2025 trekking collection. The brand has opted for 100% polyester garments in many cases to make its products more recyclable.
Credit: Ternua
