Smart, stylish, circular: polycotton recycling with Circ

In the beginning of the 21st century, the world’s appetite for fashion exploded. A McKinsey report estimates the number of garments purchased per person soared by 60% between 2000 and 2014, while the lifespan of each item halved. Today, a garbage truck’s worth of textiles is dumped in landfills or incinerated every second, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. If this trend continues, the fashion industry’s greenhouse emissions could rise by 50% by 2030 – a stark warning from the World Resources Institute.

The largest portion of the environmental footprint left by producing new clothes comes from raw materials – with cotton and polyester being the most widely produced fibers globally. Circ reports that cotton production uses 3.3 million acres of land and 6 billion cubic meters of water annually, while polyester production requires the use of 70 million barrels of oil each year and generates up to 3 times more carbon emissions than cotton. The environmental toll is staggering.

The time to act is now

Enter Circ, a U.S.-based innovator determined to rewrite the story of textile waste. “Solve Big Problems” is one of Circ’s guiding principles, and it’s the philosophy that led them to pioneer a patented hydrothermal process capable of recycling discarded clothing –  cotton, polyester and, crucially, polycotton blends. For years, these very materials were considered unrecyclable. Luke Henning, Chief Business Officer at Circ best summarizes this revolution: “We have pioneered a technology that returns polycotton waste back to the raw materials from which it was made, so fashion brands can reuse fibers and reduce harm to the Earth in the process.”

Circ knew that tackling such a complex challenge required an experienced and reliable partner with deep expertise in process technology and chose to partner up with GEA because of its decades-long expertise in evaporation, crystallization, heat transfer, mixing, solid/liquid separation, distillation and drying – all with the goal of producing PET chips out of discarded garments to use them for producing new clothes.

What sounds like an easy and straightforward idea is, in reality, a complex process that needed a tailor-made unique plant design. For this, GEA made use of all its garnered experience in process design and took it several steps further with a new design space for crystallization – an especially challenging stage due to the high temperature and pressure requirements as well as the rheological (flow and viscosity) behavior of the handled slurry. 

Three different GEA locations in two countries (France and Germany) were involved – all concentrated on the same objective: delivering to Circ’s exact specifications with the highest quality and the optimal energetic and economic value. They were motivated by solving one of the most pressing issues of our time: reducing waste and bringing circularity to an industry that has struggled with it previously. Circ’s spirit left a lasting impression in Laurent Palierne, Director Evaporation & Crystallization at GEA. “Circ’s team was just as passionate as us when it came to developing the perfect plant. The energy was such that the relation turned into a partnership,” he says. 

As it turns out, the admiration was mutual. “Working with the GEA engineering team at their design offices in France has been a pleasure,” says Farid Ghaderi, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Circ. “The GEA design team is willing to communicate promptly and is highly flexible in overcoming design challenges. We look forward to continuing working with GEA on further process design development, which will enable Circ to successfully execute the first 100% polycotton textile recycling facility of its kind worldwide.”

From a royal shortlist to making history

Circ’s innovative spirit caught the world’s attention in 2023 when it became a finalist for the prestigious Earthshot Prize, an award founded by Prince William to spotlight solutions that repair and regenerate the planet. The recognition brought Circ’s vision to a global audience and attracted new partners, investors and collaborators eager to help close the loop in fashion.

And recently in May 2025, Circ announced a monumental leap: the construction of the world’s first industrial-scale polycotton recycling plant in Saint-Avold, in the northeast of France. The news, unveiled at the prestigious Choose France Summit by President Emmanuel Macron, marks a before and after for both Circ and the global circular economy.

This pioneering facility will be the first to recycle both post-consumer and post-industrial polycotton textiles – previously destined for landfills – into high-quality cellulose and PET inputs for new clothing. Using Circ’s patented hydrothermal technology, the plant will separate cotton and polyester, returning each to a form ready for new life. The process uses pressurized water and heat to break down polyester into its base monomers and recover intact cellulose chains from cotton, producing “Next Gen fibers” that emit up to 130% less greenhouse gases than are produced in the manufacture of virgin fibers.

Once operational, the Saint-Avold plant will process 70,000 metric tons of polycotton waste annually, creating 200 jobs and serving as a flagship for future expansion into North America and Asia. Construction is set to begin in late 2026, with full operations targeted for 2028 – perfectly timed to meet the EU's climate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels).

“This is the moment we’ve been building toward since Circ was founded,” says Peter Majeranowski, President of Circ.

Working alongside Circ at the core of this groundbreaking project has made GEA colleagues incredibly proud – and more aware than ever of engineering’s power to shape what once seemed out of reach. As the world’s first polycotton recycling plant prepares to come online in France, GEA is celebrating helping Circ prove that the future of fashion is as low-carbon and circular as it is stylish.