UKFT launches circular design playbook for fibre recycling in fashion

UKFT and the Circular Textiles Foundation launched a Circular Design Playbook at Textiles Recycling Expo in Brussels on 24-25 June 2026, giving brands a practical brief for designing clothes that can be recycled back into new fibre. The playbook is aimed at design, buying, sustainability, technical, compliance and marketing teams, and it breaks the work into team-by-team actions, fibre-specific recycling parameters and the Circular Textiles Foundation’s Theory of Thirds framework for sorting ranges into what is already recyclable, what can be improved with modest changes and what is still difficult.

The European Environment Agency puts EU textile waste at an estimated 6.95 million tonnes in 2020, around 16kg per person, with 11.6kg per person ending up in mixed household waste. It puts 82% of that waste as post-consumer, while EU member states must have separate collection systems for used textiles from 2025 under the Waste Framework Directive. Without more sorting and recycling capacity, those textiles can still be exported, incinerated or landfilled.

The European Commission puts current textile-to-textile recycling at about 1% globally. Its study says lifting textile-to-textile recycling in the EU to 10% could save 440,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year and conserve 8.8 billion cubic metres of water. BCG’s 2026 analysis puts European textile-to-textile recycling below 1% today and says it would need to reach about 15% by 2035 to absorb a meaningful share of future waste volumes.

Primark’s 2024/25 figure put 5% of all clothing units sold as circular by design, with the figure rising to 20% for jersey units and 8% for denim units. The company launched its Circular Product Standard in 2023 and updated it in 2026, adding a Progressive design level and clearer requirements on materials, durability and recyclability, including post-consumer recycled textiles and more recyclable printing techniques.

Primark has circular design guidelines across nine product areas, including denim, jersey, knitwear, nightwear, shirts, skirts, blouses, dresses and leisurewear. It partnered with the Circular Textiles Foundation in August 2024 on advanced circular-design training for design and product teams and selected suppliers, after more than 500 colleagues completed its initial training programme. Its takeback scheme now covers 87% of its store footprint, and the company has run 730 free repair workshops in markets including the United States, Germany and Spain.