Researchers in Amsterdam, together with technology company Avantium, have developed a process to extract glucose from polycotton and recycle the remaining polyester. It is already working on a pilot scale, Nature Communications reports.

With the advent of fast fashion and the disposable mentality, the textile industry has risen to third place on the list of most polluting industries, after oil and gas extraction and agriculture. There is an urgent need for a solution to the huge amounts of textiles that are thrown away, but until now it has been difficult to properly separate the cotton and synthetic mixtures. Nienke Leenders, Gert-Jan Gruter and colleagues at the University of Amsterdam have found a solution for recycling polycotton, thanks in part to Avantium’s Dawn technology.