Textile recycling faces significant scaling hurdles due to high capital costs and fiber degradation. While EU and California EPR laws are forcing a shift toward recycled content, the industry struggles to move beyond mechanical recycling, which often produces lower quality materials than virgin plastics. Emerging chemical and enzymatic recycling technologies aim to solve these quality issues, but high costs remain a barrier. The article argues that relying solely on recycling to solve the fast fashion crisis is similar to how the oil and gas industry uses carbon capture to justify continued fossil fuel production.
