A new report uncovers hidden roadblocks to circular fashion: the trims, labels and fasteners inside garments that hinder textile-to-textile recycling.
The newly released white paper from Accelerating Circularity, Toward Circular Systems for Trims and Ignored Materials (CSTIM), shines a spotlight on a little-noticed yet critical obstacle in the fashion industry’s urgent need to become circular: everything besides the fabric itself. Trims, threads, fasteners, labels, laminates and adhesives may represent a small percentage of a garment by weight, but their impact on recycling and re-use potential is anything but negligible.
According to the report’s overview, “trims, adhesives, thread, laminates, labels, and fasteners are the primary contaminants requiring removal for textile-to-textile recycling.” These components impede fiber-to-fiber recycling, contaminate feedstocks and make the creation of new recycled yarns and fabrics far more difficult than the industry often acknowledges.
The scale of the challenge is vast. Globally, approximately 92 million metric tons of textiles are landfilled or incinerated each year — representing “an enormous loss of material and economic value,” as Accelerating Circularity frames it. Within that context, the CSTIM paper argues that focusing solely on fabric composition or fiber types misses a crucial layer: the attachments and finishing components that are embedded in garments and other textile products.
Why ‘ignored materials’”’ matter
These attachments and trim elements are often the hidden barrier to circularity. The report outlines that manual or automated sorting and preprocessing must scale to manage mixed-material inputs; recycling technology must advance to handle increasingly complex assemblies; design for disassembly must become standard; and cross-sector collaboration around standards and data-systems is essential. The working group convened by Accelerating Circularity in 2023 brought together experts in materials science, finishing technologies, recycling innovation and apparel design to explore precisely those practical solutions.
For example: a jacket may feature zip-pulls, metal clasps, laminated patches, woven labels and multiple adhesive layers. Each of those needs to be separated — or designed to separate cleanly — to produce a feedstock eligible for high-quality recycling. If the trim remains attached, the fiber stream is contaminated and the economics of recycling often collapse. In short: the fabric can’t be fully circular unless the attachments allow for it.
Another analysis states that only about 12 percent of textile material is recycled globally,reinforcing the idea that waste is not only environmental but economic: roughly $500 billion in value is lost annually due to under-utilisation of clothing and textiles. These staggering figures set the frame: the industry cannot afford to ignore the trim problem any longer.
Moreover, well-known technological and systems-barriers in textile recycling, such as the high cost of sorting, low demand for recycled fiber and fragmented collection systems, are magnified when trims and attachments are mixed in. Eileen Mockus, Chief Operating Officer at Accelerating Circularity, notes that the barriers are closely tied, “solving one doesn’t negate the need to solve all.” The CSTIM paper adds the layer of “ignored materials” into that equation.
What the future could look like
Accelerating Circularity’s systems-level approach offers a compelling blueprint. Rather than tackle one fiber or one recycling technology, the organization builds infrastructure that connects discarded textiles to commercially viable recycling systems.
That means enabling brands to meet recycled-content targets, reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and conserve virgin resources while also addressing the layer of trims and attachments. The design-for-disassembly idea is central: if garments are built knowing that fasteners and labels might later need to be removed or recycled, the leftover fiber feedstock becomes far more viable.
Accelerating Circularity recently hosted a workshop at the 2025 Textile Exchange Conference 2025 in Lisbon titled “Scaling Circular Systems for Trims and Other Ignored Materials (CSTIM)”. There, case studies and operational strategies were shared and participants were challenged to adopt design thinking that includes the trim-layer from the start.
When the fashion story shifts from “what fabric is used” to “how the garment is built,” everything changes. It means that next time you buy a piece of clothing, you might ask: how easy will it be to recycle when I’m done wearing it? Are the labels and fasteners attached in a way that won’t render the fabric useless? Are repair and reuse built into the design?
Brands increasingly will need to answer these questions — not just about the visible fabric, but about the unseen infrastructure of the garment. The CSTIM report is effectively saying: yes, circular fashion is possible — but only if we build garments that recognise every component.
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