Textile-to-textile recycling company Syre receives investment of 100 million dollars

Fresh-faced recycling company Syre has raised an additional 100 million dollars in a new funding round, according to a press release.

The capital raised will be used to set up the first recycling and manufacturing facility in the US, which should be operationally active as early as the end of 2024.

In addition to this, the money will be used to prepare for setting up textile-to-textile recycling facilities worldwide and has further aided in Syre’s purchase of patented technology for recycling, allowing post-consumer textile waste to be converted into circular polyester in a way that is rapidly scalable worldwide.

Syre reported in the release that it has its eye on Vietnam and Iberia, Spain, as locations for the facilities, adding: “Both regions are strategically positioned within the textile production chain and have a long history of a vibrant textile industry, with access to knowledge, supply and logistics alongside green energy.”

Syre was founded by the H&M Group in partnership with Vargas Holding, with a focus on textile-to-textile recycling, specifically with polyester.

As such, the company hopes to discourage the use of virgin polyester and bottle-to-textile recycling. Notably, recycled polyester is now often made from plastic bottles, despite the bottle industry having its own circular system.

Recycled polyester has been under a magnifying glass for some time, but attention to it has been growing recently. Much of the recycled polyester used in the fashion industry comes from (collected) PET bottles. While PET bottles can be recycled over and over again, with current techniques recycled polyester typically cannot. This means that recycled polyester can only be downcycled after use.