Advancing recycling technologies for mixed post-consumer textiles waste from blended products
Open
Status as published by the data source.
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
• European textiles manufacturers have access to novel technologies for fibre-to-fibre recycling of post-consumer textile waste;
• local authorities and consumers benefit from resource- and cost-efficient waste management of post-consumer blended textiles;
• European recyclers are equipped with properly characterised mixed post-consumer textile waste. Scope:
The topic aims at improved management of the end-of-life phase of textile products. Textiles are the fourth highest-pressure category for the use of primary raw materials and water and fifth for GHG emissions and a major source of microplastic pollution in production and use phases. They are also a key material and product stream in the circular economy action plan. Proposals are expected to demonstrate and deploy innovative solutions for increased quality, non-toxicity and durability of secondary textile materials and their processing and treatments.
Proposals should:
• address textile consumer products made of fibre blends (e.g. polycotton, or other blends of multiple materials in combination such as synthetic, semi-synthetic and natural);
• demonstrate and test novel and marketable solutions for post-consumer textile waste (apparel and home textiles) enabling its effective end-of-life collection, sorting and recycling (fibre-to-fibre), possibly including biotech solutions;
• demonstrate and test innovative techniques for effectively disassembling complex products, separating multi-material layers and fibre blends and removal of non-textile components, coatings or contaminants to facilitate efficient recycling processes;
• assess the recyclability limits of textiles by determining the number of recycling cycles a fibre can undergo. When further fibre-to-fibre recycling is no longer viable, alternative applications should be explored to extend the material's value. Solutions should address recycling of products made of natural fibres (e.g., cotton) or/and semi-synthetic fibres, i.e. modified natural fibres (e.g. viscose), blended with synthetic fibres, ensuring optimal resource efficiency and minimizing waste throughout the textile lifecycle;
• characterize post-consumer textile waste in order to define appropriate management practices in particular if the technology is developed within an industrial and urban symbiosis;
• advance recycling technologies that remove persistent chemicals (e.g. PFAS) from post-consumer textile waste which may harm human health and the environment, and that minimise the release of hazardous chemicals and microplastics during the recycling process. A lifecycle perspective using LCA and LCC should be used when validating the technical and economic feasibility of the developed, improved, demonstrated and up-scaled processes. For comparability reasons, LCAs should use well-established methods and be based on PEF wherever feasible. Proposals should fully incorporate the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) approach.
Proposals are expected to contribute to the objectives of the Textiles of the Future partnership and to build on/coordinate with EU projects funded under the partnership and previous textile-related Horizon Europe calls. Clustering with other relevant Horizon Europe projects is encouraged.
The topic supports the European Green Deal, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and its working plan, the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, the Waste Framework Directive, the Zero Pollution Action Plan, the upcoming Circular Economy Act and contributes to Europe’s efforts to develop a single market for sustainable products. It also contributes to the Start-ups and Scale-ups strategy.
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Activities are expected to achieve TRL 6-8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B. Activities may start at any TRL.
- Status
- Open
- Deadline
- (time not stated)
- Opens
- Published
- Total budget
- €11,000,000
- Grant range
- €5,000,000 – €6,000,000
- Country
- European Union (EU-wide)
- Programme
- Horizon Europe (HORIZON)
- Official page
- Open at the source portal
Other calls under Horizon Europe (HORIZON)
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- Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADSM) for more efficient and flexible distribution grids
- Community of practice - Data-Driven Decision-Making in Energy
- Industrial processes and equipment for innovative, reliable and scalable tandem technologies (EUPI-PV Partnership)
- Integrated Approaches for Retrofitting Infrastructures with Innovative Energy Storage Technologies
- Demonstration of hydropower technologies for efficient and forward-looking refurbishment of existing hydropower plants
- Delivery of industrial CCUS clusters – Societal Readiness pilot
All calls under this programme
Similar opportunities
- Innovative circular solutions for end-of-life footwear through collection, sorting and recycling
- Developing novel recycling technologies for complex plastic materials applying biotech solutions
- Demonstrating and deploying innovative collection, sorting-for-reuse and repair systems for textiles at city/region level (Circular Cities and Regions Initiative topic)
- Textile circularity through advanced processing and manufacturing technologies and system approaches (IA) (Textiles for the Future partnership)
- Capacity building for extending product lifecycles through repair and refurbishment
- Improving circularity of multilayer flexible plastic food contact packaging
Where this came from
- Source document
- https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/data/topicDetails/horizon-cl6-2026-01-circbio-02.json
- Document fingerprint
b6437acd88ee414a(SHA-256, first 16 hex characters)- Retrieved
- First recorded here
What has changed
- url first recorded as https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/horizon-cl6-2026-01-circbio-02 on
- currency first recorded as EUR on
- amount_max first recorded as 6000000.00 on
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- budget_total first recorded as 11000000.00 on
- deadline first recorded as 2026-09-17 on
- opens_on first recorded as 2026-04-17 on
- published_on first recorded as 2025-12-12 on
- status_basis first recorded as source_status on
- status first recorded as open on
- title first recorded as Advancing recycling technologies for mixed post-consumer textiles waste from blended products on
Data source
© European Union, 2026. Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU — CC BY 4.0.
Retrieved from the source on .
The source last updated this document on Tue, 05 May 2026 07:58:08 GMT.
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