Vietnam's circular polyester deal shows why sustainable fashion depends on automation, quality control, and industrial supply chains.

Textile recycling is no longer just a matter of collection, sorting, and good environmental intentions. The new frontier is transforming an irregular flow of used materials into a predictable, traceable industrial raw material compatible with the needs of major brands. It is in this still-fragile transition that the memorandum of understanding signed by ABB and Syre to explore technologies of automation, electrification and digitalization to support the Swedish company's first large-scale plant in Vietnam .

The agreement concerns a planned site in Gia Lai province, intended to recycle polyester from used textiles and industrial waste to obtain new recycled material. According to the companies' statement, evaluation activities should proceed in parallel with the plant's detailed engineering phase, with construction starting by 2027. The agreement remains exploratory, but the industrial message is clear: to bring the textile-to-textile recycling Beyond the pilot scale, control systems, electrical infrastructure, industrial software, and process expertise similar to those already consolidated in chemistry, fibers, and advanced manufacturing are required.

The context explains the significance of the operation. Textile Exchange estimates that global fiber production will reach 132 million tons in 2024. Polyester remained the most produced fiber, with approximately 77,7 million tons and a 59 percent share of global output. The same source indicates that 88 percent of polyester still comes from fossil sources and that recycled polyester represents approximately 12 percent of this fiber's production. Another crucial factor: almost all recycled polyester, approximately 98 percent according to Textile Exchange, now comes from PET bottles, not old fabrics. The crux of the matter The circular economy in the fashion sector it is therefore still open.

From textile waste to PET: a supply chain to be industrialized

Syre was born in Sweden in 2023, launched by H&M Group and Vargas, with the stated goal of decarbonizing and reducing waste in the textile supply chain, starting with polyester. The company has built a technological base in United States, with a research and development facility and a pilot line in Mebane, North Carolina. According to the ABB-Syre press release, it has ramped up production of multi-ton circular PET chips by 2025, a step used to demonstrate the process's feasibility.

The challenge, however, isn't proving that chemical or advanced polyester recycling can work under controlled conditions. The issue is making it stable on an industrial scale, with repeatable quality and continuity of supply. Discarded textiles are a complex material: they contain dyes, finishes, seams, elastane, fiber-to-fiber blends, and contaminants that make it difficult to return to a raw material equivalent to virgin material. For this reason, textile-to-textile recycling isn't simply a simple extension of bottle recycling. It requires an integrated chain that begins with feedstock selection, moves on to material depolymerization or regeneration, and ends with chips, filaments, and fibers with parameters suitable for production.

Regulatory pressure is raising the stakes. In the European Union, separate collection of textiles has been mandatory since 2025, while extended producer responsibility policies are shifting costs and obligations to those who place products on the market. The European Environment Agency estimated that in 2020, the Union generated approximately 6,95 million tonnes of textile waste, equivalent to approximately 16 kilograms per person: only 4,4 kilograms were collected separately for reuse and recycling, while 11,6 kilograms ended up in mixed household waste. This is a gap that no single plant can fill, but it helps explain why the sector is seeking industrial capacity, not just experimentation.

Automation and quality control to close the loop

ABB's potential contribution concerns the less visible, yet more crucial, aspect of scalability. The memorandum includes the evaluation of distributed control systems, digital industrial software, an electrification portfolio, and process and quality control solutions. In a polyester recycling plant, these elements are used to manage variables such as temperature, pressure, purity, incoming material continuity, energy consumption, operational safety, and batch traceability.

Wilson Monteiro, Global Business Line Manager for Pulp, Paper and Fiber in ABB's Process Industries division, summarized the industrial scope of the agreement as follows:

“Together with Syre, we will explore how our expertise in fibers, chemistry, and advanced industrial processes can be applied to polyester recycling.”

The statement is significant because it places the topic within the process industry. Large-scale textile recycling cannot depend solely on waste availability or brand demand. It must behave like a production system: measurable, automated, auditable, and integrated with customer standards. Here theautomation it is not an efficiency accessory, but a condition for reducing variability and industrial risk.

Digitalization can also support quality control along the line by connecting sensors, supervisory systems, and data analysis. Looking ahead, the value lies not only in producing recycled polyester, but also in demonstrating the material's origin, documenting its performance, and making it usable in global supply chains with stringent technical requirements. This is crucial for the apparel, furniture, automotive, and interiors sectors, where replacing virgin material requires continuity and certifiability.

Vietnam as a production hub for circularity

The choice of Vietnam It's not marginal. The country is already a major manufacturing hub for textiles, footwear, and electronics, with a central position in Asian supply chains. Locating a recycling plant in a production area brings material regeneration closer to the places where polyester is processed, reducing some of the logistical inefficiencies typical of linear models. It doesn't automatically close the loop, but it creates the conditions for waste, production, and industrial demand to interact.

Syre aims to produce circular polyester with quality comparable to that of virgin material. At its launch in 2024, the company announced a seven-year offtake agreement with H&M Group worth $600 million and the ambition to operate multiple gigascale plants and produce over 3 million tons of circular polyester within ten years. These goals should be viewed as industrial trajectories, not as proven results. Transitioning from project to operation requires capital, permits, consistent feedstock, reliable energy, and customers willing to absorb volumes at sustainable conditions.

Dennis Nobelius, CEO of Syre, insisted precisely on the role of industrial partnerships:

“Industrializing textile-to-textile recycling is a complex task.”

This sentence contains a broader lesson for materials innovation. Many sustainable technologies fail not because they lack environmental rationality, but because they don't find a repeatable industrial model quickly enough. In the case of polyester, the issue is even more delicate: virgin material is cheap, available, and technically reliable. Any circular alternative must therefore compete not only on climate protection, but also on quality, price, volumes, and integration with existing machinery.

Because the market demands systems, not just promises

The industrial curiosity of the ABB-Syre agreement is that it shifts the focus from the final product to the production architecture. For years, the debate on sustainable fashion has focused on alternative fibers, capsule collections, and declarations of intent. The new, more concrete phase concerns plants, supply contracts, engineering, and digital transformation of the factory. It's a shift in scale that affects not only brands, but also automation suppliers, chemical companies, sorting operators, infrastructure investors, and regulators.

There are at least three implications for the sector. The first concerns feedstock: without quality collection and sorting, advanced recycling risks being underutilized. The second concerns standardization: producers must guarantee recycled material with consistent characteristics, otherwise large customers will not be able to incorporate it into their standard lines. The third concerns cost: circular polyester will have to gradually close the gap with virgin material, especially in segments where margins are low and price sensitivity remains high.

The most troubling statistic remains the one reported by Textile Exchange: less than one percent of the global fiber market currently comes from pre- and post-consumer recycled textiles. Therefore, textile-to-textile recycling cannot be portrayed as a ready-made solution to growing consumption. Rather, it is one of the necessary infrastructures to change the material metabolism of fashion, along with design for durability, reduction of difficult-to-separate blends, reuse, repair, and producer responsibility policies.

The agreement between ABB and Syre should therefore be read with caution, but also with caution. Caution, because a memorandum does not equate to an operational plant and because the textile recycling supply chain remains exposed to technical, economic, and regulatory uncertainties. Caution, because it points to a direction: circularity Materials quality isn't just built in laboratories or ESG strategies, but in control rooms, electrical systems, process software, and industrial contracts. If the Gia Lai site transitions from design to production, it will be a major test not only for Syre and ABB, but for the entire polyester value chain.

ABB and Syre to explore technologies for industrial-scale textile recycling

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