Global fibre production has doubled since 2000
Preferred materials and standardisation non-profit Textile Exchange has published its 2024 Materials Market Report.
Its headline finding is that global fibre production in 2023 reached 124 million tonnes in volume. This was a 7% increase on the figure for the previous year.
Textile Exchange said that if current trends continue, the figure will reach 160 million tonnes in 2030. It said the 2023 figure was a record and represented a doubling of global fibre production volumes since the start of the century.
The production volume of virgin fossil-based synthetic fibres reached 75 million tonnes in 2023, an increase of almost 12%. Textile Exchange said that polyester alone accounted for 57% of total fibre production in 2023, but that the share of recycled polyester had fallen. Last year, recycled fibres made up only 12.5% of all polyester production, while the figure for recycled polyester in 2022 was 13.6%.
Cotton fibre production in 2023 was 24.4 million tonnes, a decline of just under 3% year on year. Cotton’s share of overall fibre production was down slightly in 2023, to around 20% of the total.
Production of manmade cellulosic fibres, including lyocell, viscose and modal, reached 7.9 million tonnes last year, up by 6.7% year on year.
Image: Textile Exchange
