Performance shorts and compression T-shirts are a far cry from polyester regeneration but that’s the world that Patrik Frisk is immersed in now.
The former chief executive officer of Under Armour now serves as CEO of Reju, a textile regeneration company based in Paris that just completed the buildout of a plant to recycle polyester fabrics.
Called the Regeneration Hub Zero, the factory, which is in Frankfurt, can recover, collect and sort textiles that have been discarded and turn them into Reju Polyester, which has a 50 percent lower carbon footprint than virgin polyester.
Reju was formed just one year ago in Paris. It is owned by Technip Energies, an engineering and technology company, uses technology invented by IBM and Under Armour is an investor in the company.
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Frisk said he first got involved with this emerging technology in 2019 while he was still heading Under Armour.
“At Under Armour, we were on a path to try to use more recyclable content in our polyester garments,” he said, but the team wasn’t able to find enough recycled materials from textile sources to fulfill the mission. The only available option was recycled bottles and that is not sustainable long term, they believed, so the company needed to find other paths.
Soon after, they heard about this new technology being developed by IBM that they believed was “revolutionary,” he said, because it was able to work with mixed materials, which is what most apparel items are made from. “With 100 percent pure polyester, you kind of take it apart and put it back together,” he explained. “And that can be done with lots of different technologies. What we were missing was something that could take what we make in the apparel industry, which is super complex, and this showed promise. So we decided to invest into it.”
Soon after, Technip, one of the largest engineering companies in the polyester space, also got involved. “They’ve built over 1,000 polyester factories,” Frisk said. “But they were also into petroleum and other products like natural gas, hydrogen, carbon capture. They were looking for what’s next in terms of engineering projects in the renewables space, so IBM had this technology, Technip could build it, and Under Armour was the brand and the product. It looked like this could be something that could work.”
The next step was to build a demonstration plant so the technology could be scaled. Under Armour wasn’t prepared to invest in building a factory and neither was IBM, but Technip was all in.
Once Frisk left Under Armour in 2022, Technip approached him about continuing to work on the project and later named him CEO of the newly formed Reju business.
He knew he didn’t have any expertise in what he refers to as the “back back end” of the apparel industry so he spent nine months immersing himself in the business to understand the technology, the regulations that would impact it and the best way to bring it to market.
Among the things he learned was the enormous size and scope of textile waste. “The world produces 92 million tons of textile waste each year, yet less than 1 percent is recycled. It is a system that extracts finite resources creating textile waste with no responsibility for end-of-life. Reju is going to change that by unlocking a new system through critical partnerships around the world. We will build infrastructure, scale technology, comply with regulation and, in the end, help the textile industry evolve and enable a change in behavior. Our Regeneration Hub Zero in Frankfurt is a significant milestone, showcasing how this advanced technology addresses the global textile waste problem.”
The Hub expects to begin deliveries in 2025, the same year that Europe will begin segregating textile waste like it does with bottles and other recyclables. “Doors are closing,” he said. “And brands need to start taking responsibility for the waste they’re creating.”
That’s where Reju comes in, he said. The company has yarn and fabric experts on staff to work with brands to ensure their waste has a “second life.”
“The ability to take what is today pure waste and turn it into new raw material, is doable,” he said. He pointed to a Materials Market report released by the Textile Exchange last week that said between 2022 and 2023, the world went from making 160 million tons of textiles to 124 million tons — 7 million of which was polyester. And the numbers are just going to get bigger. “It’s kind of staggering,” he said.
Frisk said the company has already lined up customers but he declined to name them at this point. But the technology can be used by a variety of industries ranging from hospitality to automotive in addition to fashion. “Fifty-seven percent of all fibers in the world are made from polyester. There’s nothing out there that’s as versatile, as durable, as wrinkle free, as easy to wash. So we’re going to be stuck with it for a long time.”
Within the apparel space, he said that, in addition to obtaining “obsolete inventory” from brands, Reju also hopes to work with nonprofits where individual customers donate unwanted product.
Although Reju is starting with 100 percent polyester and polyester blends, it can also extract cotton from the fabrics and plans call for eventually working with that material as well.
“Because polyester is the biggest problem, we need to finish that work first, before we attack the cotton. But we see a future where we do both,” he said. “Our goal is to leave no waste.”
For that reason, the technology will be available to everyone and won’t be proprietary to any specific company, including Under Armour, which is no longer an investor. “We want as many [companies] participate as possible,” he said.
Looking ahead, plans call for additional plants to be built in the U.S. as well as Europe within the next three or so years. “We’re looking at a half dozen sites in each location,” he said. “You don’t want to transport the waste. We need to build where the waste is.”
Overall, Frisk said he is “incredibly optimistic” that this new technology can help address the global waste issue. “Bottle to textile is not sustainable, and there’s a lot of that being made today. About 13 percent of polyester recycle is coming from bottles. It’ll be sustainable for a while, but not forever.
“At the end of the day, we’re trying to help [companies] get to a better place. We’re really trying to help them work through this transition as easy and painlessly as possible.”
