Polycotton in a new form: Fashion2House connects two industries
How can one of the textile industry’s most difficult-to-recycle materials become a resource in an entirely different sector? The Fashion2House project aims to demonstrate how post-consumer polycotton textiles can be transformed and reused as sustainable materials for household products.
Fashion2House is one of the projects funded in Net Zero Industry’s first system demonstrator call. Last year, the project was granted additional funding for a second phase. The objective of the first phase was to demonstrate the feasibility of converting discarded polycotton (polyester-cotton blends) into plastic-like materials for household applications.
Through mechanical and thermal processes—without chemical separation—the project demonstrated that 100% recycled polycotton can produce a material with mechanical properties comparable to conventional plastics. In parallel, the project also addressed sustainability assessments, regulatory aspects, and value chains to better understand what is required to bring the solution forward.
Broadening the project perspective
In phase two, the focus shifts to scaling and implementation. The ambition is to increase production to pilot scale, validate the entire supply chain, and develop functional prototypes that can be tested by the project’s industrial partners. In addition to the technical work, life cycle and cost analyses are being deepened, alongside continued work on regulatory frameworks and industrial conditions.
Abhilash Sugunan and Mattias Wennerstål, members of the project’s coordination team, emphasize that the funding and project format have been crucial in enabling the project to be carried out in the required way. By incorporating the five system dimensions, the project has been able from the outset to work broadly and in parallel with technology, business models, regulation, and sustainability analysis—rather than addressing these aspects sequentially or as an afterthought.
“Through Net Zero Industry, the project has been able to address structural issues that often determine whether a solution can gain traction—such as how materials are valued, how responsibilities are distributed across the value chain, and how regulations influence raw material choices. For us, it has become clear how important it is not only to support technical innovation. Thanks to Net Zero Industry, we can also build an understanding of the system changes required for a true transition,”
says Abhilash Sugunan, Research Manager at RISE.
The value of the system demonstrator approach
“The system demonstrator approach is central to the project’s insights and results. The main value lies not only in proving that a technical solution works, but in simultaneously making visible how technology, business logic, regulation, and responsibilities are interconnected. In our case, this approach has helped demonstrate why open-loop recycling can be both technically feasible and industrially relevant—yet still difficult to implement within today’s systems,”
says Mattias Wennerstål, Research Manager at RISE.
The system demonstrator format has also made it possible to work in a truly interdisciplinary way—something that is essential for long-term implementation. Legal expertise, sustainability analysis, and industrial development have been integrated parts of the project, contributing to a more realistic understanding of what is required for new material solutions to become part of a sustainable industrial future.
Next steps
The project will continue until November 2027. By then, the aim is to move closer to new ways of valuing materials and circular flows. Already, the project has highlighted the need for improved methods to capture the value of recycled materials from both a life cycle and societal perspective, as well as the potential of new actors and business models that can bridge different sectors.
Fashion2House is therefore not only a technical development project, but also an example of how innovation projects can drive learning, collaboration, and long-term transformation—laying the foundation for future industrial applications of circular material solutions.