News

The Tech Revolutionizing How We Handle Textile Waste

By: Jovan Najdic, Technical Manager, Quantox Technology

January 2026

 

The fashion and textile industry faces a critical challenge: every year, millions of tons of textile waste end up in landfills or incinerators across Europe. Despite growing awareness of sustainability, less than 1% of post-consumer textiles are recycled back into new fibers. The problem isn’t just the volume of waste, it’s the lack of infrastructure to track, sort, and efficiently route materials through the recycling ecosystem. This is where digital innovation becomes essential.

At Quantox Technology, we’re tackling this challenge head-on as part of the STREP project (Systemic Solutions for upscaling the Reuse of Textile fibers). Our role focuses on building the digital backbone that makes large-scale textile circularity possible: developing traceability systems, interoperability frameworks, and marketplace platforms that connect every actor in the textile value chain.

 

The Invisible Problem: Lack of Information

One of the biggest barriers to textile recycling isn’t technology, it’s information. When a garment reaches its end of life, critical data disappears: What fibers is it made from? What dyes were used? How should it be processed? Without this information, sorting facilities must rely on manual inspection or basic sensors, leading to inefficient sorting, contamination of recycling streams, and ultimately, lower-quality recycled materials.

This information gap affects everyone in the value chain. Recyclers struggle to source consistent, well-characterized feedstock. Manufacturers can’t reliably access recycled materials that meet their quality standards. And consumers have no way to verify the sustainability claims of products made from recycled textiles.

 

Building the Digital Infrastructure for Circular Textiles

Through STREP’s Work Package 4, Quantox is developing three interconnected technological solutions that address these challenges:

 

1. Circular Data Models and Interoperability APIs

We’re creating standardized data models that capture the complete lifecycle of textile materials, from production through multiple use cycles to recycling. By leveraging existing supply chain standards like GS1 Digital Link and GS1 EPCIS 2.0, we ensure that data can flow seamlessly between different systems and stakeholders.

Our interoperability APIs enable textile collectors, sorting facilities, recyclers, and manufacturers to exchange information securely while maintaining appropriate access controls. A sorting facility might share fiber composition and quality metrics with potential recyclers, while a manufacturer can track the origin and processing history of recycled materials they source.

 

2. Blockchain-Based Traceability Framework

In collaboration with Zentrix Lab, we’re implementing a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) framework that provides immutable, verifiable records of textile lifecycles. By writing data hashes to the blockchain in parallel with our traditional data layer, we ensure the integrity and trustworthiness of information throughout the supply chain.

This approach addresses a critical challenge in circular economy systems: trust. When multiple parties handle a textile through its lifecycle, blockchain technology provides cryptographic proof that data hasn’t been tampered with, enabling reliable sustainability reporting and preventing greenwashing.

 

3. Digital Product Passports and B2B Marketplace

Perhaps our most tangible innovation is the digital product passport system. Working with RFID textile-based tags developed by our partners, we’re creating digital identities for textiles at the fiber level. These passports aggregate data from manufacturers, retailers, consumers, and recyclers, creating a comprehensive digital twin that follows the physical product.

The B2B marketplace platform we’re building connects these passports with market demand. Recyclers can list available materials with detailed specifications, while manufacturers can search for feedstock that meets their exact requirements. This marketplace doesn’t just facilitate transactions, it optimizes material flows by ensuring textiles are routed to their highest-value application.

 

Real-World Impact: From Data to Action

The technologies we’re developing have practical applications across the textile value chain:

For Sorting Facilities: Integration with automated sorting equipment means that digital product passport data can inform real-time sorting decisions, dramatically improving efficiency and accuracy.

For Recyclers: Access to detailed material information enables better process optimization and quality control, reducing waste and improving yields.

For Manufacturers: Reliable data about recycled material quality and availability makes it feasible to incorporate higher percentages of recycled content into new products.

For Consumers and Regulators: Transparent, verifiable information about textile origins, composition, and recycling history supports informed purchasing decisions and regulatory compliance.

 

The Challenge of Scale

Building these systems requires solving complex technical challenges. Our DLT infrastructure must handle potentially thousands of transactions per second as the system scales. Our APIs must work across diverse legacy systems used by different stakeholders. And our data models must be flexible enough to accommodate the incredible variety of textile products and processing methods while maintaining standardization.

We’re also navigating critical questions about data privacy and commercial confidentiality. Our architecture implements granular access controls that let stakeholders share the information necessary for circularity while protecting sensitive business data.

 

Looking Ahead

We’re currently in the development and testing phase, with pilot demonstrations planned for later in the project. The goal isn’t just to prove that these technologies work, it’s to demonstrate that they can be deployed at industrial scale across Europe’s fragmented textile recycling landscape.

The transition to a circular textile economy won’t happen through recycling technology alone. It requires a digital infrastructure that makes information as reusable as the materials themselves. At Quantox, we’re building that infrastructure, one API, one blockchain transaction, and one digital passport at a time.

The textile waste crisis is fundamentally a systems problem. And increasingly, the most powerful tools for solving systems problems are digital. Through STREP, we’re proving that the same technologies transforming other industries APIs, blockchain, and digital twins can revolutionize how we handle textile waste, turning disposal challenges into circular opportunities.