How one recycler is trying to remake the viscose supply chain

You’ve probably never heard of Circ, but the textile-to-textile recycling company is aiming to shake up the viscose supply chain through a new partnership with China-based Xinxiang Bailu Chemical Fiber Co (Bailu), one of the world’s largest viscose filament producers.

Viscose, often marketed as “rayon,” is one of fashion’s most widely used fibers, appearing in everything from dresses to linings, and traditionally relies on wood pulp sourced from forests.

Now, Bailu has struck a deal with Circ to buy its recycled pulp for commercial-grade viscose filament production. Simply put: It will use Circ’s recycled pulp to produce viscose filament at industrial scale, potentially giving textile-to-textile recycling its biggest commercial push yet.

“When people think of fashion, they think of brands and retail experiences in stores or maybe even online,” Circ CEO Peter Majeranowski told Retail Brew. “But the materials that are used to make it in the supply chain…are these oftentimes huge, very sophisticated industrial companies, mostly in Asia that nobody’s ever heard of, but that’s really where the rubber meets the road.”

With partnerships with major fashion brands such as Madewell, Reformation, and C&A that have committed to using the company’s recycled materials, alongside investment from the likes of Patagonia, Circ has established somewhat of a reputation in the industry.

Circ has also created a network of supply chain partners called “Circ Ready” that have worked with its material. Over the next few years, it aims to produce 70,000 tons of recycled pulp annually in its first factory located in France.

“The technology is finally here,” Majeranowski said. “Now it’s about scale and industrialization, and that’s the phase where the industry is beginning.”

He explained that while brands tend to move cautiously when adopting new materials, often running their own testing and sampling processes before committing, interest in Circ had grown noticeably in recent months, driven largely by the expansion of extended producer responsibility, or EPR, regulations in places like California and across Europe.

Under EPR systems, brands pay a small fee per garment, often a few euro cents, that flows into a central fund used to support collection, sorting, repair, resale, and recycling infrastructure. Many programs also include incentives for companies that use recycled materials.

“You typically have a carrot and a stick; the stick is the tax that you charge when you do it, and the carrot is if you have recycled content, then you get a rebate back from the fund,” Majeranowski said. “If you’re a large brand…you’re looking at hundreds of millions of dollars of additional fees if they’re not using recycled material. That’s created a very large motivation.”