Look down at what you’re wearing right now. If, like me, it’s a soft, stretchy t-shirt that’s survived countless washes without falling apart, there’s a high chance that it’s made from a polyester-cotton blend. These fabrics dominate mass-market wardrobes for a reason: they’re cheap to produce, durable, and most of all, they’re comfortable. They’re also one of the fashion industry’s biggest blind spots.
Every year, around 71 million tonnes of plastic fibres are produced, 88% of them deriving from fossil fuels. Once these garments are too worn to be resold or reused – even by the Oxfam down the road – they’re usually destined for landfill. Not because no one wants them, or they’ve lost all their use, but because no one really knows what to do with them.
That’s why a recent biotech breakthrough caught my attention: a green process that could turn these well-loved but no-longer-necessary clothes into valuable raw materials using enzymes (yes – the same things that help digest your food) instead of heat, high pressure or harsh chemicals that stress out the environment. It sounds other-worldly and strange, but it could just be the beginning of a truly circular fashion system.
The process, as stated in a paper published by Bioresource Technology in late 2025, begins by ball-milling the fabric (essentially just grinding it into fine pieces), making it far easier to separate the polyester from the cotton without damaging them, using enzymes (Bioresource Technology). The cotton is converted into glucose by cellulase enzymes in a process called hydrolysis, which is a well-established method. The more novel step lies in how the polyester is handled: specialised enzymes break the plastic back down into its original building blocks: this is called depolymerisation. In simple terms, long chains of plastic are dismantled into the same small molecules that are used to make it in the first place, creating the potential for it to be made into something entirely new.
It’s all well and good to have figured out how to separate the fabric blends without damage, but what does it actually mean? What is it about these materials being broken down that actually impacts the rest of the world, and makes it more than just a successful science experiment? Instead of creating another form of waste, the researchers have focussed on making this a valorisation process – meaning that the process has to result in creating something useful, giving your old clothes a second chance at life. In this case, the researchers have converted one of the by-products of the broken-down polyester into a compound called PCA, using genetically engineered bacteria. It’s not particularly important to remember what the compound is called, but what it is used for: PCA is commonly used in skincare, specifically anti-aging and anti-wrinkle products. So, yes, the clothes you’ve not been able to shift on Vinted may appear in your bathroom cupboard in the (hopefully not too near) future.
Coming from a fashion and not a science background myself, reading this paper was complicated, seemingly in line with the science-fiction novels I read over the summer. However, when I reached out to Elena Rosini, one of the researchers behind the study, she was keen to stress that the technology isn’t experimental in the way it might sound. The individual steps involved (the ball-milling, the enzymatic treatments and bioconversions) are already well-established at an industrial level. It is how the researchers have been able to combine them to combat textile waste that makes it a possible breakthrough.
For now, this kind of recycling is designed for industrial-scale use rather than individual consumers – so the clothing donation bin at the end of your road isn’t going to be delivered to a science lab any time soon. The enzymes are highly specialised, and the process requires controlled environments rather than standard recycling facilities. But, according to Rosini, the system already shows potential to be economically sustainable, and as with many other sustainable innovations, wider adoption is expected to bring costs down. This makes it even more likely that one day our clothes may pass through one of these systems, and our old poly-blend clothes may be smoothing out the wrinkles on our face.