A new research partnership between Singapore-based Loom Carbon and RTI International, a US scientific research institute, signals a shift in how the textile industry is beginning to frame its waste problem—not as a recycling bottleneck, but as a source of carbon feedstock.
Under a 12-month programme hosted at RTI’s Pilot Xcelerator facility in North Carolina, the partners aim to scale Loom’s proprietary thermal chemical recycling platform, designed to process mixed and contaminated textile waste that conventional mechanical or chemical recycling cannot handle.
The scale of the challenge is formidable. Global textile waste exceeds 92 million tonnes a year, according to RTI, yet less than 15% is recycled. Most blended garments still end up incinerated or landfilled, largely because fibre separation is technically and economically unviable.
Loom’s approach bypasses fibre recovery altogether. Its process converts difficult textile waste into three classes of outputs: circular pigments and materials that can replace fossil-derived inputs in textiles, coatings and plastics; carbon materials suitable for cement, asphalt and composite applications; and recoverable thermal energy to power industrial operations. The emphasis is on durability and carbon substitution rather than apparel-to-apparel recycling.
RTI’s role is critical. Beyond hosting pilot-scale trials, the institute will provide process engineering support and emissions validation, a prerequisite for Loom’s claim of carbon-neutral outcomes. If successful, the collaboration would move Loom’s technology from pilot to commercial readiness.
The target markets are telling. The partners are preparing for deployment across Southeast Asia, Europe and North America, regions where extended producer responsibility and textile stewardship regulations are tightening. In these jurisdictions, solutions that can absorb large volumes of low-quality textile waste may prove as important as fibre-to-fibre recycling.
The bet is pragmatic. Not all textiles can be recycled back into garments—but if their carbon can be retained in long-lived industrial materials, the waste stream shrinks, emissions fall, and circularity takes a different, potentially more scalable form.
