How best to recycle Europe’s fast fashion waste? Grow mushrooms on it, say researchers

Most clothing and home textile waste currently still goes unsorted, whilst fashion is driving significant increases in unwanted goods. From 2025, EU Member States must separate textile waste under the Waste Framework Directive - but problems remain despite this legislation. Options include carrying out extensive sorting and separation, or recycling mixed textiles into new products. However, there is a lack of commercially viable technologies for use in mixed textile recycling.

A review of 27 research papers has identified the following products as offering the most potential for re-using this waste:

• Fungi-based (mycelium) composite for thermal insulation. This can be used e.g. to increase home energy efficiency as a green building material, or to improve thermal performance in industrial processes and mechanical systems;
• Bio-oil and terephthalic acid (TPA). These substances are used in chemical production to create plastics, resins, composites, and paints, with TPA being a precursor to polyethylene terephthalate (PET; a polyester widely used in clothing, packaging, and manufacturing);
• Textile-reinforced composite for use in construction - for example, to retrofit existing buildings, or used in place of traditional steel-reinforced concrete blocks as a stiffer, more lightweight, more durable building material;
• Cotton and nylon fibres, spandex monomers (molecules for spandex production) and bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET; a compound that can produce polymers for numerous applications such as resins, foams, and bioplastics). These fibres could also be recycled back into textiles, closing the recycling loop.

The researchers calculated how close each use would be to an ideal solution, using four criteria - environmental, economic, technical, social - and rated each option. They found fungal-based insulation material had the greatest future development potential. This can be achieved by growing Pleurotus pulmonarius, a type of oyster mushroom, on a mixture of agro-industrial waste and recycled ground textiles.

This option came out on top because the process to produce the material is well-researched and simple, it has both a high economic viability and market potential, and, as it can be produced from a wide range of wastes and by-products, it has considerable possible environmental advantages. Insulation grown on a mixed-textile substrate using mycelium offers a potential solution as part of the Strategy for a Sustainable Built Environment, which promotes the use of novel, low-carbon and circular materials. However, the researchers found the composite material analysed in the work to have notably poorer (higher) thermal conductivity than existing alternatives such as polystyrene, and so this should be an area of focus for future research to optimise the product and explore its applications.

They found the second-best option to be textile-reinforced composite, followed by BHET, spandex, cotton and nylon, and finally bio-oil and TPA. The latter two products were rated highly for technical readiness and market competitiveness, but lower for environmental impact (due to the high cradle-to-gate Global Warming Potential (GWP) of the processes required to make them, which is up to 3 times that of producing crude oil). The textile-reinforced composite showed good technical performance and reasonable environmental and social impacts, according to the analysis, but poor economic performance.

With separate textile collections now happening across the EU, the work has obvious policy relevance. As well as the aforementioned Waste Framework Directive, reuse and recycling of waste textiles falls under European policy initiatives such as the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles. This strategy aims for a significant quantity of the textile products on the EU market to be recycled by 2030, and proposals seek to bring its Extended Producer Responsibility policy to bear on the textiles industry - this would require manufacturers to have oversight on the entire life cycle of their products.

With limited technological options to recycle post-consumer textile waste, this research provides valuable insights into where resources might be best directed. Still, there is work to be done before initiating pilot studies. The researchers advise a re-examination of the technical properties of mycelium-based materials, as well as more detailed economic, environmental and social assessments.

Reference:

Valtere, M., Bezrucko, T., Liberova, V. and Blumberga, D., 2025. Recycling of mixed post-consumer textiles: opportunities for sustainable product development. Rigas Tehniskas Universitates Zinatniskie Raksti, 29(1), pp.323-343. https://reference-global.com/article/10.2478/rtuect-2025-0023