Fashion for Good, Levi Strauss & Co., On, Reformation, and Ralph Lauren Corporation launch Stretching Circularity to address elastane, present in 80 percent of clothing and a major barrier to textile recycling.
You won’t necessarily see it in your clothes, but you surely feel it: Elastane, also known as Spandex and Lycra, appears in approximately 80 percent of clothing sold today, adding stretch to everything from athleisure to formal wear, and it is preventing most garments from being recycled back into new fibers.
Launched today by Fashion for Good alongside industry partners including Levi Strauss & Co., On, Reformation, Paradise Textiles, Positive Materials, and with Ralph Lauren Corporation serving as an advisor, Stretching Circularity aims to accelerate the adoption of lower-impact elastane alternatives compatible with circular textile systems. By validating bio-based and recycled elastane solutions through pilot-scale testing and demonstrator garments, the initiative is designed to address what the group describes as one of the most significant technical barriers to a circular textile economy.
Elastane, added in varying concentrations — typically 1 to 5 percent by weight in cotton or wool garments and up to 20 percent in polyester or polyamide pieces — delivers the stretch consumers expect in everything from denim to activewear. Yet the fiber, which is fossil-fuel-based, poses two intertwined sustainability challenges. It contributes to carbon emissions and dependence on non-renewable resources, and even in minimal amounts, it acts as a contaminant in recycling streams. When blended into high-volume fibers such as polyester and cotton, elastane disrupts fiber-to-fiber recycling, leaving brands with limited options beyond downcycling or landfill.
“Lower-impact elastane solutions exist, but they lack the pilot-scale validation brands need to scale them confidently,” Katrin Ley, managing director at Fashion for Good, said in a press release. “This initiative seeks to provide that missing data, turning a well-known recycling ‘contaminant’ into a functional component of a circular supply chain.”
Why elastane disrupts recycling
The data gap has been a persistent obstacle. Existing bio-based and recycled elastane options remain fragmented and largely unvalidated at scale, while proven technologies capable of separating elastane from blended textiles are scarce. Without credible, comparable evidence, brands have been reluctant to integrate alternatives into supply chains that demand consistency and durability.
“Elastane is one of the most overlooked blockers to true circularity in fashion: it’s everywhere and yet there is a significant challenge to recovering it at scale. Stretching Circularity is about tackling that problem at the root and proving that lower-impact stretch materials and new recycling pathways can meet real performance and design standards,” said Carrie Freiman Parry, senior director of sustainability at Reformation.
Testing bio-based and regenerated alternatives
Stretching Circularity is structured around two workstreams intended to close that data gap. One focuses on next-generation elastane materials derived from alternative inputs, including bio-based feedstocks. As part of that validation phase, the consortium will produce demonstrator garments: a technical T-shirt incorporating 10 percent elastane and a non-technical T-shirt with 2 percent elastane, allowing partners to assess performance under real-world conditions.
The second workstream evaluates regenerated elastane produced through emerging recycling innovations. Both pathways follow a pilot-scale validation approach to generate comparable data on material performance, environmental impact, economic feasibility, and scalability. The project operates under a structured due diligence framework to determine whether alternative stretch materials can meet the benchmarks set by conventional elastane while enabling fiber-to-fiber recycling in blended systems.
For brands that have invested heavily in circularity commitments, elastane has long represented a blind spot embedded in everyday product design. By shifting the conversation from stretch as a comfort feature to stretch as a systems challenge, the coalition is reframing a technical footnote as a central lever for circular progress — one that will determine whether the majority of garments on the market can ever truly be designed with their next life in mind.
Related on Ethos:
