Scaling Textile Recycling? Respetto Breaks Through the Scale-Up Barriers

The textile sector accounts for around 10% of global CO₂ emissions. The solution to regenerate waste exists — but the market has been stuck. Until now.

A new 2025 report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reveals an extraordinary economic potential: $50 billioncould be recovered from textile waste. A figure that makes the eyes of anyone working in sustainability light up. But BCG also highlights the other side of the coin: only 7% of textile waste is actually recycled.

Seven percent. The problem isn’t about willpower or environmental awareness. It’s a systemic, structural issue that no communication campaign can solve.

The Four Barriers Blocking Textile Regeneration

BCG has done a precise job of identifying where the system jams. And the surprise is this: it’s not a single bottleneck but four entirely different barriers that multiply their effects:

1. Waste Generation: Consumers produce tons of textile waste but don’t know how to dispose of it properly. The right bin? The recycling center? The container on the street? Too complex, too inconvenient.

2. Collection: The infrastructure is limited, fragmented, and inefficient. Collection systems exist but are inadequate for real-world volumes.

3. Sorting: Sorting still relies heavily on manual processes that collapse when faced with material contamination. Mixed, blended, multilayer — it’s often too expensive or simply unmanageable.

4. Processing Capacity: The available recycling technologies simply cannot handle the current volumes. And the more we try to scale, the more technical limits emerge.

We often talk about scaling textile recycling as if it were a single challenge. But BCG’s analysis shows that we are facing four distinct problems, each requiring its own solution — or one technology capable of rethinking the entire process.

The Hybrid Technology Changing the Game

This is where Respetto comes in. We’re not talking about an incremental improvement of existing technologies. We’re talking about a completely different, hybrid approach that combines mechanical processing and green chemistry to do what was previously thought impossible:

regenerate all textile waste — even mixed materials — without pre-sorting, producing high-quality, sustainable secondary raw material.

How Respetto Overcomes the Four Barriers Identified by BCG

Barrier 1 – Generation and Collection:
Respetto enables waste regeneration where it is generated — pre-consumer in production, post-consumer at retailers or collection centers, industrial or household waste.
There’s no need for a centralized, complex collection system: the process happens close to the source, minimizing transportation and making each adopter’s operations circular.

Barrier 2 – Sorting:
This is the true game-changer. No selection is needed. The Respetto technology processes any type of textile waste — natural, mixed, multilayer, or synthetic. What is an insurmountable challenge for traditional technologies becomes just input for Respetto’s advanced transformation process.

Barrier 3 – Processing Capacity:
Respetto plants are compact, modular, and scalable. Recycling capacity is installed exactly where it’s needed — in a textile factory, a collection hub, or a city — and expanded where volumes grow. Total flexibility.

Barrier 4 – Output:
Not only is waste eliminated, but next-gen eco-materials of superior quality are generated, ready to re-enter production cycles. This is real circular economy, not greenwashing.

Respetto: A Disruptive Technology

The recycling technologies currently available on the market are essentially either mechanical or chemical. Both yield interesting results but come with inherent limitations.

At Regenstech (a startup born from Regenesi, which has been creating circular fashion and design accessories for 17 years), we took inspiration from nature, which typically uses hybrid transformation processes.

By combining the best of both worlds, we overcome the constraints of individual technologies. That’s what happens when you stop optimizing the existing and start rethinking the problem from scratch.

BCG has clearly described the current challenge. Regenstech, with Respetto, already has the solution.

It Can Be Done. Can You?

If you’re interested in exploring how Respetto Technology can transform your textile waste into valuable resources, get in touch with us directly.

Let’s work together on a pilot project — defining objectives, timelines, and budgets — and prove that scaling textile recycling is not just possible; it’s already happening.

The future of textile regeneration is not a hypothesis.
It’s here. Now.

Want to learn more? Contact us to develop your own textile regeneration pilot project.