‘Circular polyester’ company launched by H&M
Apparel group H&M has set up a new textile-to-textile recycling spin-off, calling it Syre.
Starting with a factory in North Carolina that will be operational before the end of 2024, the new company will use textile waste to produce what it is called ‘circular polyester’. It has said the fibres it produces will be of the same quality as oil-based virgin polyester, but with “a superior sustainability performance”.
It has calculated that producing polyester for garment production in this way will reduce the fibre’s carbon emissions by up to 85%.
Syre has said it will establish the new factory in North Carolina as a blueprint and then move quickly to use the same technology in other parts of the world. It described the technology involved as plug-and-play and insisted it will integrate into the existing textile value chain.
Its aim is to have 12 large-scale factories in place within ten years and for those factories to have a combined production capacity of 3 million tonnes of the company’s circular polyester per year. It said the technology will also work with other fibres.
Syre means ‘oxygen’ in Swedish. H&M and its launch partner, investment firm Vargas Holding, also chose the name because ‘sy’ is the Swedish for sewing and ‘re’ means ‘over again’ in Latin.
