Lululemon establishes partnership with textile recycling startup, Samsara Eco

Sportswear company Lululemon has announced a new multi-year collaboration with textile-to-textile recycling firm, Samsara Eco, as it looks to scale its circularity practices.

The brand said that through the partnership it is aiming to make infinitely recycled nylon and polyester from its own products using the startup’s circular process.

Samsara Eco offers the ability to recycle high-performance nylon and polyester blends, with the duo to utilise apparel waste to create new materials and therefore bring “lower-impact alternatives” to the performance apparel industry.

Speaking on the collaboration, Yogendra Dandapure, Lululemon’s vice president, raw materials innovation, said in a release: “Nylon remains our biggest opportunity to achieve our 2030 sustainable product goals.

“This partnership demonstrates what’s possible through collective innovation to solve unmet needs.

“Through Samsara Eco’s patented enzymatic process, we’re advancing transforming apparel waste into high quality nylon and polyester, which will help us live into our end-to-end vision of circularity.”

The partnership builds on Lululemon’s ‘Be Planet’ goals, in which it is aiming to create a circular ecosystem by 2030, largely led by the implementation of sustainable materials, shopping experiences like its re-commerce programme and textile-to-textile recycling.

Samsara Eco’s CEO and founder, Paul Riley, commented: “We’re proud that this partnership is disrupting the apparel industry. Samsara Eco's ability to infinitely recycle blended textiles including nylon, provides an important solution to tackle the challenge of textile waste.

“This has never been achieved before, and partnering with lululemon is a significant milestone that will accelerate the journey to closing the loop on textile recycling.”