<div id="readability-page-1">Textile recycling factory on (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images) Getty Images On November 10, 2025, Nike signed a multi-year offtake agreement with Loop Industries, becoming the anchor customer for Loop's 70,000-tonne India facility. The timing reflects market urgency. Earlier this year, European regulators mandated that brands use recycled textiles, but commercial supply remains virtually nonexistent—the equivalent of requiring electric vehicles before building charging infrastructure. The economics are compelling: Europe's $400 billion apparel market means even a modest 5% shift to mandated recycled content creates a $20 billion addressable market for recycled polyester.  Aspirational became compulsory overnight. The result? A rare market dynamic: legally mandated demand with almost no established supply. With less than 1% of garments currently recycled back into textiles, early movers have an asymmetric opportunity , assuming they can solve the economics. They won't be me-too entrants chasing scraps; they'll be companies defining the rules of an industry that barely existed a year ago.  But there's a catch. Every garment is a cocktail of dyes, blended fibers, and chemical finishes that overwhelm systems built for bottles. The technology to crack it exists—barely. Industrial-scale chemical recycling from Eastman and Loop can break down even contaminated polyester textiles into pristine feedstock (virgin-quality material). With only two proven technologies in commercial production, the scarcity premium is real.  The regulatory pressure is building. The EU's textile collection mandate took effect in January 2025 , followed by harmonized Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules in October 2025 . Enforcement still varies across member states, but the direction is clear: producers now bear the costs and compliance obligations directly. The rules leave few viable alternatives. Companies can't greenwash their way out because EPR schemes track compliance ton by ton. They can't simply swap to a cheaper option and stay compliant. EPR enforcement is ramping up through 2026, and whether enforcement proves rigorous or lenient will determine how quickly brands move from exploration to commitment.  Two players are racing for dominance with completely opposite strategies. Eastman is doubling down on centralized industrial power, building high-temperature methanolysis plants backed by decades of refinement and the capital to scale fast. Loop is taking the opposite path, rolling out modular, contamination-tolerant systems designed to handle complex feedstocks and reach underserved markets. Both are betting on different paths to the same market.  MORE FOR YOU The textile opportunity emerges from a hard lesson: what happened to recycled bottles. During the ESG boom of 2021–2022, rPET traded at 40–60% premiums as brands made voluntary pledges. Then reality hit. China flooded markets with cheap virgin plastic, corporate buyers quietly reverted, and prices collapsed dramatically. Without enforceable mandates, companies abandoned commitments when virgin plastic got cheaper.  The casualties were real. Viridor's £317 million Avonmouth plant shut down in 2024 after just two years—exactly the kind of facility that seemed unstoppable during the ESG boom.  By 2025, bottles had fought their way back with mandates and cost-competitive technology. The recovery was a rehearsal. Textiles are now the main event: a $20B+ annual market opportunity, nearly three times the size of bottles (≈$7B), harder to crack, and backed by mandated demand with fewer escape routes.  Meanwhile, significant capital is flowing in, and this isn't speculative ESG money. Major players are committing long-term capital with real skin in the game. Veolia has committed £70 million to the UK's largest closed-loop PET plant. Eastman is moving forward with its $1.2 billion Texas facility. LyondellBasell is investing €40 million in Germany, backed by the EU. PETRONAS is building Asia's largest advanced recycling plant.  The survivors of the bottle market crash learned a brutal lesson: circularity must work on market terms, not just good intentions.  Eastman (NYSE: EMN) operates chemical recycling at a commercial scale and is spending $2B+ to expand that capacity. Its process requires the heat and pressure of an industrial furnace. Methanolysis runs at 250+°C and 500+ psi (34+ atmospheres), breaking PET into pure grade monomers. This industrial approach can handle PET streams that mechanical systems reject, but it demands significant energy and capital investment.  The company has committed $2 billion to expansions in Tennessee and France, signaling confidence in its core technology. Its Kingsport, Tennessee, facility has processed over 110,000 metric tons annually since March 2024. That operational track record has translated into commercial traction: Eastman has more than 100 customers already purchasing its Renew resin across durable goods, cosmetics packaging, eyewear, and textiles—all paying premiums for recycled content. Active buyers include Procter &amp; Gamble, L’Oréal, and Estée Lauder, with partnerships spanning brands like H&amp;M, Patagonia, and Warby Parker.  Yet not everything is smooth: Eastman’s Longview, Texas, project lost a $375 million Department of Energy grant in May 2025 , forcing $200 million in delayed spending. In France, the Normandy plant's progress has slowed, with phased development and timelines extending beyond the original 2025–2026 targets.  Eastman's real moat isn't just scale—it's 30 years of process refinement . Each operational improvement, from catalyst optimization to contamination handling, creates cumulative advantages that can't be reverse-engineered. With chemical recycling patents surging 350% over five years and newcomers starting from zero, Eastman's three-decade head start has a significant competitive advantage.  Its centralized model offers scale, brand trust, and decades of technical refinement, with existing commercial revenue from an established customer base purchasing from its operational Kingsport facility. But growth faces headwinds: subsidy volatility, delayed timelines, and rising energy costs.  Loop Industries has been supplying material used in Nike footwear, On's Cyclon shoe program, and products from Evian/Danone, L'Occitane, and L'Oréal, from its small scale production facility operating in Terrebonne, Québec. The India facility will scale output to 70,000 tonnes annually, processing the contaminated PET streams that mechanical and thermal recyclers typically reject.  Loop's process runs at low temperatures and atmospheric pressure (&lt;100°C), compared to traditional methanolysis systems that often exceed 200°C and require elevated pressure. This lower energy intensity—where heat can represent 20–30% of operating costs—provides a potential economic edge, especially for modular plants near feedstock sources. The technical bet is contamination tolerance. Textile waste streams are complex mixtures of dyes, chemical finishes, and blended fibers. Loop's low-temperature chemistry is designed to handle these contaminated streams without the thermal degradation issues that can complicate higher-temperature processing.  Loop scales through licensing and joint ventures rather than centralized facilities. The India plant follows this model: fabricating reactor units in lower-cost markets, assembling near end customers, and sharing capital deployment with partners. This reduces Loop's direct capital exposure while distributing execution risk.  The India facility represents Loop's first test at an industrial scale. The technology has demonstrated performance in small production runs. The question is operational consistency at 70,000 tonnes annually, meeting Nike's quality specifications and price requirements.  The supply shortage is acute. On November 11, 2025, one day after Nike committed to Loop Industries, it also signed with Syre, a Swedish startup with $100 million in Series A funding from H&amp;M Group. But Syre has no operational plants and no proven technology at commercial scale. When a global brand writes offtake agreements with a company that hasn't produced a single tonne, the market signal is clear: textiles have gone from industry afterthought to the main event.  The mandates are live, demand is firm, and enforcement is tightening across the EU. The technology works. This isn't about feel-good ESG goals anymore—it's about who can move fast enough to claim a market that's now required by law.  For investors, the timing question matters more than the technology comparison. Eastman offers immediate exposure through operational facilities generating commercial revenue, but faces subsidy dependence and the margin pressure inherent to high-temperature chemical recycling. Loop provides asymmetric upside if the India facility delivers at scale, but remains unproven at industrial production volumes. Nike's commitments validate the technology and signal market urgency. The critical unknown is profitability: can chemical recycling compete on price once mandates force the entire industry to move? Investors who learned from the bottle market collapse will recognize the difference: this time, demand is written in law, not corporate press releases. Whether supply can meet it profitably is what separates the winners from the next Viridor.  Disclosure: The author has no financial interest in Loop Industries, Nike, Eastman Chemical, or any other companies mentioned in this article.</div>

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<p>Nike has signed a multi-year agreement with Loop Industries to become the anchor customer for Loop's 70,000-tonne facility in India, amid a $20 billion textile recycling rush driven by EU mandates. The market faces a unique challenge with legally mandated demand but limited supply. Companies like Eastman and Loop are competing with different strategies to dominate this emerging market, which is backed by regulatory pressure and significant capital investments.</p>

The $20B Textile Recycling Inflection: Mandates Hit And Nike Bets Big