Retailers Urged to Lead Reuse and Repair in Textile Recycling

Textile circularity only becomes real when the retailer steps in at the return counter, the resale rail and the trade-in desk. That was the clear message in Charlotte, where Bank & Vogue, Eileen Fisher, UpCycle Fiber, the National Stewardship Action Council and Kaltex framed retailers as the missing operator between consumers, sorters, recyclers and mills.

AMI launched the U.S. Textiles Recycling Expo at the Charlotte Convention Center on April 29 and 30, 2026, billing it as North America’s first dedicated exhibition and conference focused exclusively on textile recycling. The timing was apt. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says discarded clothing is the main source of textiles in municipal solid waste, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office has said textile waste has been increasing over the past 20 years in the United States, in part because of fast fashion. The European Commission’s 2030 textiles vision goes even further, calling for products that are durable, repairable, recyclable and largely made from recycled fibers, with profitable reuse and repair services widely available.

That policy pressure made the retailer discussion feel less abstract and more operational. Bank & Vogue, which says it partners with charities, collectors and thrift stores and operates in 34 countries, described the scale of the secondhand trade from the back end of the business. The company also describes itself as the largest broker of secondhand goods, store returns and overstocks in Canada, a reminder that circularity is already a logistics business as much as a design philosophy.

Eileen Fisher offered the clearest proof that a brand can build a circular system around its own stores. Renew, its take-back program, launched in 2009 and marked 15 years in 2024. The company says it has collected more than 3 million garments through Renew since launch, with approximately 2.3 million resold, donated, repurposed or recycled as of 2025. Garments in good condition are professionally cleaned and then resold in select stores and on the Renew website, turning customer return flows into inventory with a second life.

UpCycle Fiber brought the technology angle, describing its work as next-generation textile recycling that scales waste into value. Together with the expo’s emphasis on the complete supply chain, from recyclers and waste managers to manufacturers, clothing suppliers and retailers, the event pointed to the same conclusion: textile recovery fails when retailers stay passive. Collection, reverse logistics, merchandising of resale and recycled goods, and purchase commitments are the levers that can move circularity from theory to storefront, and the June 24 and 25 Brussels edition is set to test how far that model can travel.