Recently, the "2025 Circular Innovation · Fashion Conference" was held in Shanghai, hosted by the China National Textile and Apparel Council and organized by the Social Responsibility Office of the China National Textile and Apparel Council and the China Textile Information Center.

This conference aims to promote the transformation of the fashion industry towards a sustainable development model that is resource-efficient and circular, environmentally friendly, and technology-driven through cross-border collaboration and innovative practices. The guests attending the meeting focused on discussions in areas such as the research and development of environmentally friendly materials, the construction of an old clothing recycling system, and the circular utilization of polymer materials.

Sun Ruizhe, the president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, said that from 2005 to 2024, the energy consumption per unit of output value in the textile industry will drop by more than 65%, the annual average growth rate of the recycling and utilization of waste textiles will be 12%, and the annual usage of recycled fibers will exceed 3 million tons. Behind these figures lies the textile industry's proactive exploration of a circular economy.

Sun Ruizhe said that in terms of specific manifestations, the first is the deepening of innovation. From the reuse of natural fibers to the recycled weaving of chemical fibers, and then to the circular technology covering the entire product life cycle, the industry's ecological design, front-end development, popularization of clean production, and high-value end-of-pipe recycling have all been implemented. The second is the extension of space. From the internal circulation of enterprises to the circulation in parks, achieve a broader range of system optimization. For instance, industrial clusters represented by Suzhou Shengze Textile Circular Economy Industrial Park integrate and aggregate industrial elements, making industrial circulation more intensive. The third is the transparency of the process. The product digital passport (DPP) enables multi-level traceability from raw material sources to brand retail, making the circular attribute visible, adjustable and calculable, and transforming sustainable development into a perceptible and easily understandable visual expression.

Fiber materials are widely used in fields such as clothing, home textiles, and industrial textiles. However, the recycling and utilization of waste textiles still face difficulties such as difficult recycling, difficult separation, and low large-scale utilization rate. According to statistics, approximately 2% of used textiles are recycled industrially, another 12% are processed through physical methods and other means, and as high as 73% of old textiles are eventually incinerated. Xu Weilin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Party Secretary of Wuhan Textile University, said that polyester and cotton products account for the highest proportion of waste textiles. Polyester-cotton blended products, due to their complex components and difficult separation, have become a "tough nut to crack" in recycling.

In response to the challenge of recycling polyester-cotton blends, Xu Weilin introduced an innovative solution jointly developed by Wuhan Textile University and the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences: by using an ionic liquid solvent system, cellulose components can be rapidly dissolved at temperatures ranging from room temperature to 60℃, while maintaining the fiber form of polyester, thereby achieving efficient separation and high-value reuse of components.

The growth and breakthrough in the annual recycling and utilization volume of waste textiles and the annual usage of recycled fibers in our country are not only attributed to technological innovation but also supported by the innovation mechanism. For instance, in June this year, the China National Textile and Apparel Council released the "White Paper on Product Digital Passport". As an innovative link that runs through the entire life cycle of textile products, from design to production, circulation, consumption and recycling, the product digital passport will build a trusted data ecosystem covering the entire chain. By significantly enhancing the depth and breadth of information disclosure, it will achieve precise recording and efficient transmission of information throughout the product's life cycle.

The product digital passport is a digital tool for recording and displaying information throughout the entire life cycle of a product, and it serves as the "electronic digital identity archive" of the product. Hu Kehua, deputy director of the Social Responsibility Office of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, said, "We need an effective and direct tool that can connect the industrial end and the consumer end and carry out value transformation."

It is reported that the digital passport has achieved a number of innovative functions: deeply linked to the carbon label system, allowing for one-click viewing of detailed product carbon footprint reports; In the form of dynamic maps, it visually presents information such as processing factories and logistics routes involved in the entire product life cycle.

"Product digital passports are not only information tools but also the key to unlocking industry transformation." " Yan Yan, vice president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, believes that this transformation requires the textile and garment industry to shift from a linear economy to a circular economy, demands that enterprises completely change their design, production and business models, requires consumers to make informed and responsible purchases, and demands that the government formulate and enforce stricter rules, etc. (Photo provided by the interviewee

Source: Science and Technology Daily