Fashion for Good has launched Project FAE (Feedstock Activation Europe) to improve Europe’s sorting and pre-processing infrastructure for channeling non-rewearable post-consumer textiles into large-scale textile-to-textile (T2T) recycling.

The initiative addresses a crucial challenge in the circular economy: creating value from waste.

“We have been talking about textile circularity for years and the honest truth is that the technology is no longer the bottleneck,” said Katrin Ley, managing director at Fashion for Good. “What is holding us back is much more unglamorous: the sorting lines, the pre-processing steps, the supply systems that need to exist before a single fiber can be recycled.”

Led by the Amsterdam-based group, Project FAE unites ecosystem partners—including Adidas, Bestseller, and Inditex—to drive changes that strengthen infrastructure for textile recycling.

The effort will assess advanced pre-processing technologies (including fiber blend separation, elastane removal and contaminant extraction) to develop a regional framework that delivers recycler-ready feedstock and a practical commercial model for industry adoption.

“Circularity will not be achieved through product innovation alone; this is not a challenge any single organization can solve,” said Gudrun Messias, director of sustainability direction at Adidas. “The bigger and more urgent work is building the infrastructure that does not yet exist at the scale we need: sorting, pre-processing and supply systems that enable post-consumer textile waste to move toward closed-loop recycling.”

The project consists of two work packages: evaluating advanced pre-processing technologies for purer recycling feedstocks, and creating a business framework to establish large-scale sorting and pre-processing hubs in Europe.

“Project FAE brings together the brands, sorters and recyclers willing to work together to realize this pathway in the EU,” Messias said. “We are proud to be part of that work.”

Post-consumer textile waste is a challenging feedstock because it’s “highly heterogeneous,” according to Fashion for Good. In simpler terms, T2T recyclers struggle because they contain a wide range of colors, material compositions—both pure fibers and blends—and contaminants like elastane and optical brightening agents (OBAs).

At the same time, strict technical specifications and the sheer cost of sorting (and pre-processing) limit the recycling of post-consumer textiles. Limited recycling of post-consumer textiles is due to a mismatch in suitability and economic factors. But based on the project’s findings, a regional hub approach could improve Europe’s post-consumer processing—if it combined automated sorting and mechanical pre-processing to produce tailored feedstock streams for recyclers.

“Project FAE is our attempt to tackle that unglamorous, necessary work head-on—together with the brands, sorters and recyclers who know this problem better than anyone,” Ley said. “If we get this right, we unlock something the industry has been trying to reach for a long time.”