Südwolle Group expands its sustainability commitment through the collaboration with RENU fibres by ITOCHU Corporation

For Südwolle Group, the cooperation underlines the company’s approach to develop and foster eco-friendly solutions for today’s challenges, especially in textile business: “Investing in circular economy is no longer an alternative for the fashion industry, it is a must.”, explains Stéphane Thouvay, Managing Director Product Management & Innovation at Südwolle Group. “Our industry has to develop technical solutions, new services and partnerships to address the challenges of textile waste and recycling. Südwolle Group already integrates various recycled raw materials within its GRS certified yarns. We are also developing solutions and supply chains to recycle old clothing, such as worsted wool sweaters, into new yarns in order to process them into new garments. With RENU fibres and filaments, we are now very excited to offer the market unique wool blends with recycled polyester originating exclusively from textile waste!

Blending wool with RENU polyester is a ‘perfect match’: RENU delivers the performance of synthetics, such as durability and abrasion-resistance, whereas wool contributes to comfort with its thermo-regulating and moisture-managing attributes as well as a soft hand touch.“

Itochu’s RENU project addresses the excessive waste in clothing industry and aims a circular economy in fashion by utilizing textiles that used to be thrown away. RENU fibre is GRS certified sustainable polyester recycled from textile waste and old clothing. Collected garments and textiles are cut and processed into new polyester fibres through a unique depolymerization and refining process. Removing colours from the previous textile is easily possible due to a special technology that allows the recycled material to have a dye-ability comparable to virgin polyester. In addition, quality and performance of the recycled polyester does not depend on the quality of the waste: RENU can utilize nearly any type of pre- and post-consumer waste as long as it contains polyester.