PESCO-UP Newsletter

Innovative Recycling of Polycotton Blended Textiles

Polycotton, a mix of polyester and cotton, poses a significant recycling challenge due to the difficulty in separating the fibres for reuse, especially back into textile fibres. The PESCO-UP project wanted to tackle this issue.

PESCO-UP partner Nordic Bioproducts Group’s technology facilitates the separation of cellulose and synthetic materials from mixed polycotton textile waste and modifies the cellulose for use as a valuable raw material in the production of new textiles. PESCO-UP is scaling up this technology, marking a significant step towards widespread implementation.

Currently, as part of the PESCO-UP project, Nordic Bioproducts Group successfully produced new regenerated cellulose textile fibres from 100% polycotton waste-derived cellulose. While the development is still at the lab scale, the results are promising.

New textile recycling and upcycling innovation project PESCO-UP launched early 2024!

On 18 January 2024, we launched PESCO-UP, a project focusing on transforming mixed polyester/cotton waste into high-quality and clean materials for the next use cycle, aligning with the EU's 2025 textile waste mandatory collection. PESCO-UP will address industry challenges by, among others, creating a digital marketplace for information exchange and establishing recycling standards. The project spans 48 months, aiming to enhance the textile recycling value chain and reduce reliance on virgin materials

PESCO-UP joins the ECOSYSTEX Community

With 34 EU-funded member projects focusing on textile sustainability, ECOSYSTEX is a joint initiative of the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency (REA), the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) and the Circular-Biobased Europe Joint Undertaking, and facilitated by the Textile ETP. This new network of textile circularity projects aims to create a long-term community of practice, ensuring collaboration across project consortia and lasting beyond the individual projects’ durations.

PESCO-UP at Techtextil

In April 2024, Textile ETP presented PESCO-UP at TechTextil, the leading international trade fair for technical textiles and nonwovens that took place in Frankfurt, Germany. Partners discussed how the project addresses circularity across the textile recycling value chain to transform the recycling industry by creating new raw materials from mixed wastes, and to reduce the industry dependency on virgin materials.

Optimising circularity: PESCO-UP's vision

In May 20234, the Institute of Energy Systems and Environment of Riga Technical University presented PESCO-UP at the CONECT2024 event in Lithuania. In their speech on circularity in bioeconomy, they talked about PESCO-UP's aims to develop new value chains for the coming mixed textile waste volumes. They especially emphasised on the value chain optimisation based on environmental, social, and economic aspects. They also explained the future need for new skills and how PESCO-UP will develop training materials for engineers and education stakeholders in the textile sector.

PESCO-UP at Drupa

In May 2024, Mitwill Textiles Europe presented their Digital Textile Print Microfactory at Drupa, the largest printing equipment exhibition in the world, held in Düsseldorf, Germany. They demonstrated how their microfactory in Sausheim, France, develops and produces innovative printed textiles, not only for their own production, but also for European-level R&D aimed at fostering a more sustainable and advanced industry through projects like PESCO-UP and ECOSYSTEX fellow project member HEREWEAR.

PESCO-UP partners meet for project consortium meeting in Slovenia

On 17-18 June 2024, we hosted our project consortium meeting and second General Assembly in Slovenia, where we shared among the consortium the significant progress related to the separation process, from the original materials to the final products, using chemical/mechanical separation, filtration, regeneration, thermomechanical processing, glycolysis, spinning, knitting. We also heard about the use hyperspectral images to analyse the material composition and properties of samples, especially to detect elastane and additives, and we discussed the evaluation of eight polyester and five cotton recycling routes for CO/PES textiles.

Click on the photos to meet Marjo Määttänen from VTT, Coordinator of PESCO-UP, Isabel De Schrijver from Centexbel and Saman Khodabandeh from Mitwill Textiles Europe, and discover their activities within PESCO-UP and their hopes for the future of the project!

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HADEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.