Solving the challenge of multi-material garment recycling with thermal disassembly

Project Information

Resortecs

Grant agreement ID: 190182727

DOI

10.3030/190182727

Project closed

EC signature date 26 October 2022

Start date 1 November 2022

End date 31 October 2025

Funded under

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Total cost

€ 4 770 450,00

EU contribution

€ 2 500 000,00

Coordinated by

REGENERATION
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Resortecs (Solving the challenge of multi-material garment recycling with thermal disassembly)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2025-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Recycling clothes is far more complex than it appears. Beyond the fabric itself, every garment contains threads, zippers, labels, buttons, and trims that must be removed before high-quality recycling can take place. Today, this separation is done mainly by hand, making textile recycling slow, expensive, and often unfeasible. As a result, less than 1% of textiles worldwide are recycled back into new textiles, and most end up being downcycled, exported, or incinerated.

Resortecs addresses this challenge by making garments easy to take apart. The company has developed an automatic disassembly solution based on two eco-design innovations:
- Smart Stitch™: heat-activated threads that melt at controlled temperatures (150–200°C), allowing fabrics to separate cleanly from trims such as zippers, elastics, or labels.
- Smart Disassembly™: industrial thermo-mechanical machines to automatically disassemble large volumes of garments and prepare them for textile-to-textile recycling.

The goal of this EIC-funded project was to advance the development of these technologies so they can be applied to a wide range of textile products already on the market. The project focused on three core areas:
1. Developing and validating new threads, rivets, and other assembly techniques with lower disassembly temperatures, better performance, and/or more industrial applications.
2. Designing the Smart Disassembly™ continuous system, including the engineering of the line and the selection of the most suitable sorting technologies for disassembled components.
3. Running large-scale industrial pilots with brands, manufacturers, and recyclers to validate the operational, environmental, and economic viability of the complete Resortecs solution.

By enabling true design-for-disassembly, the project addresses one of the largest barriers to textile circularity. Its results contribute directly to the EU Green Deal, the Circular Economy Action Plan, and the goal of building a competitive, climate-neutral textile industry in Europe.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project led to several major technical achievements. Two new thread types were successfully developed and validated: 1) Smart Stitch™ 190°C Textured, a soft and flexible thread suited for seams in contact with the skin and for stretchy materials used in swimwear and sportswear, and 2) Smart Stitch™ 150°C, a polyester-based low-temperature thread ideal for products that do not require heat resistance during use, such as mattress covers and accessories. This thread was validated at industrial scale during a production run with a leading global bedding manufacturer.

Alongside these innovations, the project further refined existing thread families, tested new raw materials, and improved internal quality and validation procedures. Sampling pilots conducted with brands across apparel, workwear, footwear, and home textiles demonstrated the broad applicability of Smart Stitch™ and helped identify product-specific requirements for large-scale adoption.

In parallel, Resortecs designed the full Smart Disassembly™ continuous line, including heat and mass balances, CAD models, filtration design, and a complete process flow. Sorting technologies available on the market were tested using real disassembled garments, and end-blowing sorting was selected as the most efficient and scalable solution.

Finally, the project validated the complete Resortecs solution through large industrial pilots with major brands. These pilots demonstrated successful production with Smart Stitch™, fully automated disassembly, and positive results in mechanical and thermomechanical recycling. Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) confirmed substantial reductions in CO2 emissions and increased material recovery compared with manual disassembly.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project demonstrated that automatic disassembly can transform the economics and sustainability of textile recycling. Resortecs’ recently published economic study compared manual, mechanical, and automated disassembly across four product categories. The results show that:
- Resortecs’ disassembly enables material recovery rates of up to 90%, significantly higher than manual (45%) and mechanical (65%) disassembly.
- Manual and mechanical disassembly become more expensive as more garments are recovered for recycling.
- Resortecs’ active disassembly is cost-effective even at low return rates (1–30%, depending on the product).
- In certain cases, automatic disassembly can be profitable at return rates below 1%.

These findings show that circularity can be both environmentally beneficial and economically viable at scale. Automatic disassembly reduces operating costs, increases recycling yields, and generates high-quality feedstock needed for European textile-to-textile recycling.

The project also demonstrated the importance of a collaborative ecosystem involving brands, manufacturers, sorters, and recyclers. Despite progress, further work is needed to ensure full market uptake, including scaling manufacturing capacity, deploying the first Smart Disassembly™ hubs, strengthening policy incentives, and ensuring access to financing for industrial deployment.

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