Puma Expands Its Textile Recycling Technology To All Replica Football Shirts

Translated by

Anne SCHILLING

Published on

December 11, 2023

After successfully composting a version of its famous suede sneakers, Puma is expanding the application of its textile recycling innovation Re:Fibre.

Puma relies on Re:Fibre technology for its football jerseys – Puma

Since the launch of Puma's pilot project in 2022, which focused on recycled training jerseys for sponsored football teams, the brand has used Re:Fibre technology to produce jerseys for fans of the Swiss and Moroccan national teams for the Women's World Cup, as well as a third jersey for the Season 2023/24 for Girona FC.

Next year, Puma will make all official football fan jerseys, including for the European Championships and the Copa América, using recycled materials from used clothing and production waste, rather than plastic bottles. Home kits like those of Fenerbahçe SK and Shakhtar Donetsk are not part of this program.

With this program, Puma aims to develop a long-term recycling solution for textile waste. In addition, the technology is expected to help make the fashion industry less dependent on plastic bottles, the main material used to produce recycled polyester for textiles.

Because the Re:Fibre process recycles all types of polyester materials – from production leftovers to used clothing to defective products – it is possible to turn old clothing into new textiles in all imaginable colors, the company explains.

The process takes place in four stages. It begins with the collection and sorting of textile waste and other materials that were previously considered unusable, then the collected materials are cut and mixed. This is followed by dissolution, filtering and polymerization: the melting of the dissolved polyester and the extraction of the dyes through a chemical recycling process.

Finally, through fusion, new polymers can be spun and sewn to make clothing. According to Puma, the resulting Re:Fibre material is like new and can be endlessly recycled.

“We want to make the polyester used in our products from 100% textile waste. The amounts of textile waste in landfills pose a threat to the environment. This is why new production methods and a business model are of great importance for the circular economy. “Economy is one of the priorities of our sustainability strategy,” explains Anne-Laure Descours, Director of Sourcing at Puma.

To discover the entire process down to the molecular chemical processes, a film can be viewed on the Puma website.