Puma’s Latest Recycled Polyester Partner

Re&Up Recycling Technologies and Puma have signed a letter of intent (LOI) to scale a “fully circular textile solution, transforming textile waste” into the Sanko subsidiary’s recycled polyester chips and “next-gen recycled” cotton fibers.

While Puma declined to share any details on the scope of the agreement—such as clauses, contingencies or other quantifiable context—the move is in line with the Carbios collaborator’s circularity push of recent years, as stipulated by its Vision 2030 strategy to “use 30 percent fiber-to-fiber recycled polyester fabric for its apparel products.”

Also working toward the German giant’s sustainability goals? Re&Up is at-the-ready to deploy Puma’s Re:Fibre initiative in the Americas.

“We are proud to elevate our collection with Puma to the next level, building on our existing work through Puma’s Re:Fibre program,” Ozgur Atsan, chief commercial officer at Re&Up, said. “Puma, as one of the most forward-thinking brands in the industry, shares our vision for closing the recycled material gap.”

While it’s unclear as to when Re&Up joined the program—or became a “key next-gen raw material partner” of it—Puma will “leverage Re&Up’s recycled raw materials within its local supply chain” to do so.

“As part of our Vision 2030 goals, we want to have 30 percent of our polyester fabric in apparel fiber-to-fiber recycled by 2030 and our collaboration with Re&Up opens exciting possibilities for integrating virgin-equivalent recycled materials into our products,” Howard Williams, director of global innovation apparel and accessories at Puma, said in a statement. “These materials offer the performance we need while helping us achieve our circularity goals.”

The Sanko conglomerate’s nascent subsidiary said its proprietary technology is “an industry first [sic] being able to recycle the majority of polycotton blends.”

Re&Up’s patent-pending process is feedstock agnostic; that means the Dutch fiber firm can reuse the “majority” of collected waste types: aka pre- and post-consumer. This agnosticism eats “less specific and sorted materials” before digesting them (so to speak) through Re&Up’s parallel recycling processes: one for cotton, one for polyester.

The Netherlands-headquarter company said it uses a combination of “advanced mechanical and thermomechanical technologies” to segregate poly from cotton.

“The proven quality of our products, our ability to process diverse textile compositions, our annual capacity of 80,000 tons and our commitment to renewable energy reinforces our mission to produce next-gen materials and establish circularity as the standard for the textile industry,” Atsan said. “We proudly define our products as next-gen materials, as they are designed to meet the needs of the next generation in the textile industry.”

Following last summer’s $76 million senior loan from Proparco, the startup shared plans to use the funding to facilitate the construction of a new, also-in-Gaziantep plant, to be “built in line with the company’s sustainable practices and policies.” That means using renewable energy sources through “cutting-edge equipment,” including 8.4 MW capacity rooftop solar panels for self-consumption.

In late 2023, Puma announced scaling plans for its polyester textile-to-textile recycling solution technology for use in all football club and federation replica jerseys beginning the following year.  Over the summer, the Adidas alternative scaled up its textile-to-textile recycling initiative, to “create millions” of these licensed pieces with at least 75 percent recycled textile waste.

In late 2024, Woodspin and Puma signed a multiyear LOI to source sustainable, wood-based fibers from the production plant jointly developed by Spinnova and Suzano. Since then, however, Spinnova has shifted focus from fiber to technology. Suzano suspended financial support, and Spinnova’s chief executive officer, Tuomas Oijala, resigned.

On the topic of how this agreement will fit into the equation, Puma declined to expand beyond the scope of its press release.