World's leading industrial thread manufacturer, Coats, is looking for apparel industry brands, producers, and recyclers to work on its new circular water dissolvable threads portfolio, which will make end-of-life garment recycling easier and more cost-effective.

Coats' circular water dissolvable threads series seeks to help with garment disassembly, and the firm is ready to scale up this novel circular solution by collaborating with other companies at the garment design stage.

Coats believes that as more industry participants assume responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products, it is critical that they incorporate the appropriate threads and applications from the beginning of the design process.

EcoCycle is described as a new thread that retains its durability throughout the life of the garment but dissolves when washed in an industrial machine at 95 degrees Celsius. This means that the garment can be easily and quickly disassembled by pulling it apart so that the non-textile and textile components can be sorted for recycling.

Sonya Manolova, Coats product director, apparel and footwear, said that they’re appealing for industry players that want to meaningfully play their role in end-of-life recycling to cooperate with them to integrate it right from the beginning of the garment design. Together, they can improve their present first-generation EcoCycle product version to advance circularity in their sector.

According to Coats, the textile industry consumes around 100 million tonnes of new fibers each year, and approximately 90 percent of textile fibers at the end of life are directly disposed of via incineration or landfill.

Coats explains that recycling has not been scaled up in the fashion sector, owing to the fact that most clothes are made up of a variety of different materials and composites. The dismantling process is also described as tedious, labor-intensive, and costly; however, many of the individual fibers are reusable at the end of life. According to the firm, a quarter (25%) of clothing is never even worn, with newly purchased items being placed in wardrobes and forgotten until they are eventually tossed into a waste stream without being utilized.

Andrew Morgan, Coats head of sustainability, said that as an industry, they need to reset the basics in order to guarantee supply chain circularity. Sustainable innovation flips the script on product conceptualization and development by addressing end-of-life issues first, before addressing how to manufacture it.