SPANDEX RECYCLING: WE'RE IN THE HOME STRETCH

Spandex has long been considered one of the key challenges to textile circularity. The common view is that spandex (also called elastane) is impossible to recycle and that any fabric containing it can't be made into anything new.

The reality, though, is that things have changed.

In the last few years, The LYCRA Company's team of chemists and product experts has been working with textile recyclers and other partners around the world to develop, build, and refine systems for textile-to-textile spandex recycling. It's part of our framework for a more sustainable textile ecosystem, which includes plant-based fibers and certified recycled inputs, more durable and long-lasting products, and end-of-life solutions for our fibers (i.e. circularity).

Today, pilot projects have demonstrated how spandex fibers can be separated, recovered, and re-spun into new LYCRA^® fiber that is used successfully in fabrics and garments. The next stage? Scaling it all up.

HOW DOES TEXTILE RECYCLING WORK?

Textile recycling has been around for centuries, beginning with wool in the 1800s. To preserve raw materials during a time of scarcity, wool rags and fabrics were shredded; combined with a percentage of new, virgin wool; then re-spun into usable fibers. It was a smart and effective way to give wool a longer life and make use of the materials on hand. In the decades since, textile recycling has evolved, but standard mechanical recycling methods have not accounted for innovations in fibers and fabrics.

Today, textile-to-textile recycling (sometimes referred to as T2T recycling) represents a small share of textiles labeled "recycled." In the world of synthetic fibers, recycled nylon and polyester are typically made with non-textile materials, such as plastic bottles and discarded fishing nets, rather than old fabrics. This helps make use of one waste stream, but it doesn't solve the problem of textile waste.

Fabrics made with synthetic fibers can be more challenging to process — they often contain more than one fiber type (think poly/cotton blends), which makes it difficult to shred and separate out the various fibers. Add spandex to the mix and you can imagine the challenge: a fiber that stretches up to 500% its original length understandably resists shredding and gums up mechanical recycling machines, like long hair in a vacuum cleaner.

It's not that spandex itself is inherently problematic. The issue is that textile recycling systems were not originally designed for today’s advanced fabrics and complex fiber blends. That is beginning to change.

SPANDEX: BECOMING A CIRCULAR INGREDIENT

New advances in chemical recycling are driving T2T recycling forward. Rather than shredding fabrics like in years past, chemical recycling has allowed some synthetic fibers, like polyester and nylon, to be separated out from fabrics, depolymerized (i.e. broken up into their chemical component parts), and re-spun into new fibers. It's a game-changer, without a doubt, but spandex was still ending up in the landfill.

Until recently, typical chemical recycling processes left behind a spandex "skeleton," unusable bits and pieces of spandex fiber that were thrown out. But through research and development efforts by textile recyclers, fiber makers like The LYCRA Company, and research scientists studying textiles, the tides are turning.

Rather than throwing out those spandex leftovers, The LYCRA Company has devised a way to take them back and recycle them. Using an innovative solvent-based recycling system, we process recovered spandex, blend it with virgin LYCRA^® polymer, and spin that mix into new LYCRA^® fibers.

WHERE SPANDEX RECYCLING IS HEADED

Right now, recyclers are busy building the infrastructure needed to chemically process textile waste and separate out spandex fibers. Through pilot projects, we've shown we can take back post-industrial spandex waste and turn it into new fibers. We'll be ready to take on more waste as soon as it's available, and then we'll commercialize a recycled LYCRA^® fiber.

Spandex isn't the first synthetic fiber to make this journey — polyester has been paving the way for decades. The first PET bottle was recycled back in 1977, and it took years of infrastructure-building before recycled polyester became the mature, globally certified system it is today. Now spandex is walking that same path, and in some ways moving faster: The LYCRA Company's pilot programs are already producing fiber with 20-40% recycled spandex content using post-industrial waste — a strong head start.

A note here on terminology: "Post-industrial waste" refers to fabric that hasn't yet made it to the consumer, but that would otherwise end up in the landfill. For example, post-industrial waste can include fabrics that don't pass muster at the fabric mill, bits and pieces that end up on the cutting-room floor when garments are cut and sewn, and garments that don't meet brand standards and never make it to the consumer. Those "waste" fabrics can now be chemically recycled, with the spandex returned to The LYCRA Company for reprocessing into new fibers.

You might be wondering about "post-consumer" waste — the garments you've worn and worn then recycled when you couldn't wear them anymore. That's an important textile waste stream that we're working on with our recycling partners. As we continue refining these systems for post-industrial waste, the goal is to apply those same practices to post-consumer waste as the collection and sorting infrastructure for it matures globally.

HOW THE LYCRA COMPANY AND RECYCLERS ARE WORKING TOGETHER

Building a working system for spandex recycling doesn't mean The LYCRA Company does it all. In fact, it means the opposite.

We don't collect used garments, sort mixed-fiber textiles, or separate fabrics into their component fibers — that's not our expertise, and we don't try to be all things to the recycling value chain. Instead, we focus on what we do best: understanding spandex better than anyone else in the world, and turning reclaimed spandex into new, high-quality fiber.

That's where our recycling partners come in. Textile recyclers are pioneering the separation technology, refining chemical recycling processes that can gently remove spandex from blended fabrics without degrading it, and building the infrastructure needed to operate at scale. It's exacting, technical work, and is already underway at facilities around the world.

Once that separated spandex reaches us, The LYCRA Company takes over: validating its quality, then using our proprietary process to blend it with virgin material and re-spin it into new LYCRA^® fiber. Two areas of expertise, one shared goal — and it's a partnership that's only getting stronger as both sides refine their piece of the process.

None of this happens overnight — polyester's recycling system took decades to mature, and spandex is still earlier in that journey. But the milestones that matter are already behind us: we know spandex recycling works, we have fiber to show for it, and we have partners around the world building the infrastructure to bring it to scale. As that scale grows, our goal is to bring the cost of recycled spandex down until it's indistinguishable from virgin fiber, so sustainability isn't a premium feature — it's just how spandex works.

We invented spandex more than 65 years ago. Now, together with our recycling partners, we're reinventing it for a circular future.