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As the circular economy gains traction, Ukrainian firm Re:inventex is emerging as a key player in scalable textile recycling through mechanical innovation and pragmatic adaptation. The company's Development Manager, Tetiana Pushkarova, explains how they navigate fibre challenges, material complexity, and regulatory uncertainty—while building real-world recycling solutions that connect industry, policy and sustainability goals across Europe.

By integrating physical tracers with blockchain-backed data, Aware offers brands and producers verifiable proof of origin, enabling compliance, circularity, and transparency—particularly crucial as regulatory frameworks like the UPV Textiles Act take hold globally. Koen Warmerdam, Co-founder and Brand Director of Aware, shares insights into how the company is transforming textile sustainability using a phygital traceability system.

As circularity becomes central to the textile industry, French recycling innovator Cetia is streamlining disassembly and sorting through cutting-edge automation. Leading this transformation is Director Chloé Salmon Legagneur, whose team is developing intelligent systems that dismantle shoes, sort garments, and prepare materials for high-quality recycling—critical for scaling circular solutions across both footwear and fashion supply chains.

Despite separate textile collection becoming mandatory across EU member states from January 2025, fragmented implementation and enforcement gaps undermine circular economy progress. Industry experts reveal how regulatory inconsistencies and misaligned policies are preventing meaningful recycling outcomes across European markets.

Chemical recycling attracts billions in investment promises while proven mechanical methods remain underutilised. With 73% of collected textile waste still landfilled or incinerated globally, industry experts question whether technological tunnel vision is preventing immediate impact and realistic circularity solutions.

Europe's textile recycling industry generates only €1.54 billion annually despite processing millions of tonnes of waste, highlighting systemic economic challenges. Industry experts reveal how data invisibility and traceability gaps create cascading costs that undermine commercial viability and prevent meaningful circularity at scale.

As the fashion industry struggles to firm up a roadmap towards decarbonisation, one of the players that has been pro-active in trying to clean up its supply chain is the H&M Group. Kim Hellström, Senior Sustainability Manager, Climate at the Group speaks at length about the challenges in decarbonising the supply chain.

Socially disadvantaged people are disproportionately affected by temperature extremes. A recent study explored this point in Cambodia: one of the world's hottest and most humid countries. It evidenced the extent of the heat exposure faced by workers in Cambodia and the way occupational, environmental and geographical dynamics combine to shape it. The study’s lead author, Dr Laurie Parsons of Royal Holloway, University of London, contextualises this for the country’s garment workers.

ITF Intertex Portugal, the country’s leading textiles-apparel event, gets under way about two weeks from now. The country’s textiles industry is much like its football ecosystem—not very big in size, but a force to reckon with, and just as vibrant. Managing Director Serhan Pul tells us what makes Portugal’s textiles-apparel industry tick and how it is adapting to the changing times.

Last month, Environmental Impact Measuring (EIM), a well-known platform for measuring the environmental impact of garment finishing, presented the first global report on the environmental impact of denim finishing. Begoña García, creator of the EIM platform and co-author of the report, talks about the complexities of environmental metrics.