The $500m plant will be located in Saint-Avold in the northeastern region of France and is slated to commence operations in 2028 said Circ, adding the plant is expected to process up to 70,000 metric tonnes annually and will create job opportunities for 200 individuals.
The new facility will be equipped to process large volumes of mixed-fibre textiles, such as poly-cotton blends, which constitute a significant portion of global textile waste.
These materials are converted into recycled cellulose and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which serve as raw materials for future textile production.
Circ employs hydrothermal technology, which is a process that decomposes polyester without harming the cotton. This allows for both materials to be recovered simultaneously and repurposed.
The Circ facility in France will recycle textile waste, including complex blends that have traditionally been challenging to process, into fibres comparable to virgin quality.
It will reduce dependence on forest-derived feedstocks and contribute to a reduction in the carbon footprint of the fashion industry by cutting the dependency on polyester made from fossil fuels.
More than 300 million trees are harvested each year to produce textile fibre like viscose and rayon. Often these trees come from forests that are critical for climate stability and biodiversity.
Canopy commended the launch as a transformative development for the fashion industry's supply chains.
Canopy founder and executive director Nicole Rycroft said: "This facility will be a game-changer. For decades, fashion has been locked into a take-make-waste model — fuelling pollution, forest degradation, and climate instability. Circ’s new mill flips that script: transforming worn-out clothes into new textiles, reducing reliance on both forests and fossil fuels, and proving that the future of fashion is circular, low-carbon, and here. This will be a game-changer."
