When it comes to textile-to-textile recycling, the sustainability story and chemistry innovations often steal the spotlight from the more banal operations of collecting, sorting, preparing and shredding post-consumer textiles. Yet they are no less important. In fact, Patrik Frisk, CEO of textile-to-textile materials regeneration company Reju, calls infrastructure the vital “missing middle.”
The former CEO of Under Armour and former president of VF Outdoor (home of The North Face, Timberland, Smartwool, Vans, Reef, Gore-Tex and more), Frisk shifted his career focus from fashion’s endless production cycle to one that feeds it back into the system. Here, Hertzman Global Intelligence chats with Frisk about Reju’s integrated textile-to-textile regeneration system for polyester and the cross-industry coalition of collectors, sorters, recyclers, brands and policymakers needed to make it work.
HGI: From your background at major brands, many heavily steeped in polyester, what was the tipping point that pushed you into textile-to-textile recycling and the founding of Reju?
Patrik Frisk: Around 2018, while leading Under Armour, we began searching for a true textile-to-textile recycling solution instead of turning recycled bottles into fabric. Because Under Armour used so much polyester, we partnered with IBM and Technip Energies to develop technology that could depolymerize polyester from mixed textile waste. We launched a pilot in Frankfurt in 2021 and officially launched Reju in 2023.
But the bigger personal tipping point happened earlier. I was running Aldo Footwear in Montreal and realized one morning that there really wasn’t a single place left in North America where I could imagine opening a greenfield [ground-up] shopping mall. After 30 years of ‘growth, growth, growth,’ it suddenly hit me that the world was finite. When I got to Under Armour, I started looking at polyester differently. Polyester is made from oil—which is finite—and we were putting it into products that would either be burned or buried. Once I saw that, it became hard to look away.
HGI: And bottle-to-textile recycling isn’t a panacea, right?
PF: Yeah, and I feel pretty bad, as I was part of introducing that concept, but it was a different time—bottles weren’t recycled to the same extent that they are now. But the industry is also starting to realize that bottle-to-textile recycling doesn’t make much sense anymore. You’re taking something already in a circular loop—bottles—and putting it into a linear model where the garment eventually gets thrown away or burned. Plus, in Europe, it’s a requirement to use 25% recycled content in bottles, so that industry needs the bottles.
HGI: What about the recycled polyester itself? Is there parity on textile-to-textile (T2T) polyester compared to bottle-to-textile polyester compared to virgin poly?
PF: Chemically recycled [T2T] polyester is fundamentally different from mechanically recycled bottle polyester, the latter damages the molecules so you have to blend with virgin polyester to make it work. When we chemically recycle polyester, we break it back down to the monomer level—essentially the single molecule—and rebuild it. That means we can deliver a very pure, very consistent polyester again and again. I would actually argue that if you do it right, it can be even purer than so-called virgin polyester, which can have a lot of variations and impurities.
Even with the most common post-consumer waste, which is a 70/30 polyester-cotton mix, we have an opportunity when we separate out the polyester. In doing so, we also separate the PFAS and 6,000 different chemicals that have been in our textiles for years. We’re taking out some of the sins of the past. And the gift with purchase is we use about 50% less energy to do this compared to virgin, so your carbon footprint is 50% less.
HGI: What are the biggest systemic bottlenecks the industry faces today in scaling circular polyester?
PF: There really is no system. From the moment a garment becomes waste until the moment it could be reintegrated into the supply chain, there’s a giant gap. The industry doesn’t aggregate post-consumer textile waste at industrial scale—sort it for fiber, prepare it for recycling, remove zippers and buttons and shred it. It’s just sorted by hand for wearability and reuse.
That’s why Reju has built capabilities far beyond just chemistry. We work with waste-management experts—companies like WM and Goodwill in the U.S., and with more than 140 organizations across Europe—to build aggregation systems. When we turn on our first large-scale 65,000 ton ‘regeneration beast’ in the Netherlands, we’ll need 13 to 15 trucks of textile waste every day. That becomes our new pipeline. And all of this has to work economically at scale, otherwise it collapses.
HGI: Is cost the biggest stumbling block or is it changing mindsets?
PF: The biggest argument you always hear for ‘why not’ is cost, but you’ve got to build infrastructure. I’m optimistic, however, because polyester is only about 6% of the value chain cost of a garment, and that’s a relatively small sustainable component compared to, say, making sustainable aviation fuel or EV batteries. Materials are always challenging in some way. Having run the largest outdoor brand in the world, I can say that the apparel industry has always dealt with cost as a component of the ups and downs of the industry, be it freight, materials, labor or distribution. The opportunity is to know how to pull those levers.
HGI: How do you incentivize brands to pull those levers?
PF: Circularity does create opportunities to improve the business model itself. One reason we have so much waste is because products are made far away, shipped slowly and overproduced to compensate for uncertainty. Then 20% to 40% of everything gets discounted. If you start making some of this closer to market, you can make more just-in-time product, lower inventory, improve cash flow and reduce markdowns. That can actually create a more profitable system. Companies increasingly realize this isn’t just about sustainability anymore, but about resilience, supply-chain security and long-term business continuity.
“Investors need confidence that there will be stable frameworks around circular systems, otherwise, nobody is going to build the infrastructure needed.”
—Patrik Frisk
HGI: Obviously, such initiatives need capital, and investments need security. What can boost confidence?
PF: This is why policy matters. Investors need confidence that there will be stable frameworks around circular systems, otherwise, nobody is going to build the infrastructure needed. Because this is a new industry, the expected returns are going to be higher. The IRR [internal rate of return] expected from an outside investor will be north of 15%. When looking at infrastructure in a mature industry, investors would be looking at an IRR of maybe 12% to 15%, or lower if it’s a really good business.
HGI: What does the industry need to learn from the Iran War and its impact on oil prices?
PF: The insecurity of oil and shipping will not go away any time soon. Trust is broken and it’s not going to suddenly reverse itself. Brands should be smart about recycled polyester, which has such a small price differential in your value chain, to make sure you’re hedging yourself somewhat, especially in today’s world. This is not going to suddenly reverse itself.
HGI: What is the projected volume of the Reju facility in Rochester, New York, and will it help tell a “Recycled in America” story?
PF: The hub in Rochester, N.Y. should be operational before the end of the decade, and at full scale, it will process about 65,000 tons annually—roughly equivalent to 300 million post-consumer garments per year.
Rochester is a great city, and we picked it for strategic reasons. We believe New York State could become one of the leading EPR [extended producer responsibility] markets in the U.S., and we already have deep partnerships there with Goodwill Finger Lakes and others across the Northeast. We absolutely see the opportunity for more regional manufacturing around it, with some yarns, fabrics and potentially finished products made in North America. And beyond the environmental benefits, these hubs create jobs. The Rochester hub itself will add 70 jobs, but when you look across the entire value chain of aggregation, sorting, preparation and regeneration, hubs could potentially add 300 to 500 jobs.
HGI: Even though it was a different product, Renewcell’s bankruptcy was surely a wakeup call for the textile-to-textile recycling industry. How is Reju operating differently to ensure success?
PF: Renewcell was early, and I knew them well. But they were addressing cotton and cellulosics differently than we are addressing polyester. One big difference is that they were essentially creating a new material and a new downstream supply chain. Brands had to rethink machinery, sourcing and production around it. In our case, we’re making polyester again. The downstream infrastructure already exists using the same machines, yarn systems and manufacturing base. The other difference is that very early on we focused on building the system, not just the technology. If the upstream aggregation and sorting system doesn’t function, none of this scales.
HGI: Looking ahead, at both the EU and the U.S., where do you see the strongest policy tailwinds for circular textiles?
PF: Europe is definitely further ahead right now because it’s looking at eco-design, waste directives and EPR together. But harmonization is critical. If Europe ends up with 27 different EPR systems, or the U.S. ends up with 50 state-by-state systems, it becomes unworkable. The two places I’m watching most closely are France and California. France implemented EPR early, but it didn’t work properly and it is now being redesigned, while California is moving carefully and watching what Europe does. The key is making sure EPR systems are tied directly to circularity. Brands need incentives not only to pay into the system but also to take the recycled output back out. If that happens, I think this industry can scale very quickly. If not, companies will simply treat it as another fee and walk away from the actual work of building a circular economy.
What encourages me is that the industry is genuinely shifting. Brands understand that textile-to-textile recycling makes sense, and increasingly, realize it isn’t just about sustainability anymore but about resilience, supply-chain security and long-term business continuity.
