Technip Energies’ subsidiary will develop in Lacq an industrial hub to transform used clothing into new recycled polyester, with a target of around 50,000 tonnes per year for each site

Author: Marco Arezio, expert in the circular economy, polymer recycling, and industrial processes for plastics. Founder of the rMIX platform, dedicated to the valorization of recycled materials and the development of sustainable supply chains.

Publication date: March 26, 2026

Reading time: 19 minutes

Reju in Lacq: not just a new factory, but a decisive test for the circular economy of textiles

Reju’s decision to develop a large textile polyester recycling plant in Lacq, in southwestern France, deserves attention because it is not simply about opening a new industrial site. It concerns a much more delicate issue: understanding whether polyester textile-to-textile recycling can move beyond the demonstration phase and become a real European industrial infrastructure, capable of transforming used garments into new textile raw material in significant quantities. Reuters reports that each industrial site planned by Reju is targeting around 50,000 tonnes per year of recycled polyester, but it also points out that the final investment decision has not yet been made and that the recycled material will cost at least twice as much as virgin polyester.

The French project is part of a broader strategy. Reju, a company controlled by Technip Energies, has already launched in Frankfurt a pilot plant called Regeneration Hub Zero and has announced other hubs in the Netherlands and in the United States. The idea, therefore, is not to build a single symbolic plant, but an industrial network that attempts to scale a depolymerization technology for post-consumer polyester. In the case of Lacq, the company states that the site will use textile streams coming from domestic collection and recycling, generating around 80 direct jobs and more than 300 indirect ones, always subject to the final decision of the Technip Energies board.

Why polyester is at the heart of the global textile problem

To understand the industrial meaning of the Lacq project, one must begin with a structural fact: polyester dominates the fashion system. Textile Exchange reports that in 2024 global fiber production reached around 132 million tonnes, up from 125 million in 2023, and that polyester now accounts for 59% of world fiber production; of this share, 88% remains fossil-based. The same report states that production could reach around 169 million tonnes by 2030 if the sector continues without fundamental change.

This means that talking about textile circularity without addressing polyester is, essentially, a rhetorical exercise. We are not dealing with a marginal or specialist fiber, but with the main material backbone of global apparel, from fast fashion to sportswear. If polyester remains tied to fossil inputs and to an end-of-life pathway that is largely linear, then the entire narrative around circular fashion also risks being reduced to an environmental marketing operation rather than a real industrial transformation.

The most critical point, however, is another one: the recycled polyester market already exists, but for the most part it does not come from clothing. Textile Exchange states that in 2024 recycled polyester rose to around 9.3 million tonnes, but that 98% of this volume still comes from plastic bottles, not from textile waste. In addition, less than 1% of the global fiber market comes from pre- or post-consumer recycled textiles. This is where the Reju project takes on strategic value: it attempts to shift recycling from the “bottle-to-fiber” model to the “garment-to-garment” model.

How Reju’s plant is expected to work

According to Technip Energies, the Lacq hub will use a proprietary depolymerization technology to treat post-consumer textiles and transform them into rBHET, a regenerated raw material from which new textile-grade PET can then be obtained. The company explains that this intermediate will subsequently be repolymerized into Reju PET, intended to be reintroduced into the polyester value chain. Reju attributes this technology to joint development with IBM Research and presents it as the foundation of an industrial platform designed for textile-to-textile traceability.

From a technical standpoint, the theoretical advantage of depolymerization is clear: instead of merely remelting and reprocessing an already degraded polymer, the process aims to return the material to a chemical intermediate from which a polyester with more controllable properties can be rebuilt. In theory, this approach is more suitable than simple mechanical recycling when dealing with heterogeneous, contaminated textile waste or waste that has already gone through multiple life cycles. However, the soundness of the chemical principle alone is not enough to guarantee the economic sustainability of an industrial plant: everything depends on the purity of the incoming streams, the efficiency of separation, energy consumption, the quality of the output, and the price the market is willing to recognize for the final product. This is an industrial deduction consistent with the available data on sorting difficulties, feedstock quality, and final cost.

Reju also claims that its regenerated polyester has a carbon footprint 50% lower than virgin polyester and that it is designed to be recycled multiple times. It is correct, however, to point out that this is a corporate statement reported in the company’s materials, not an independent verification contained in the sources examined here. For an investor, a buyer, or a major brand, the issue is not only whether to believe the technical promise, but to understand how that promise translates into costs, specifications, constant availability, and reliability of supply.

The real wall to overcome: the cost of recycled material

The most important fact reported by Reuters is perhaps not production capacity, but the price differential: the recycled polyester that will come out of these industrial sites will cost at least twice as much as virgin polyester. Reuters adds that Reju expects investments in the order of 300 to 400 million euros per site, and that CEO Patrik Frisk considers the price premium sustainable because the cost of the material accounts for only part of the total cost of the garment. But the same report underlines that, in a fiercely competitive fashion market, the decisive factor remains price and that consumers show only limited willingness to pay more for more sustainable products.

Here one can see the full fragility of the sector. Textile-to-textile recycling for polyester is technically promising, but industrially it is squeezed between two opposing pressures. On the one hand there are high investments, plant complexity, and high treatment costs; on the other hand there is an apparel market that in recent years has conditioned consumers to low prices, rapid collection turnover, and compressed margins. In such a configuration, advanced textile recycling cannot survive on environmental virtue alone: it needs long-term purchase contracts, supportive regulation, and a sufficiently standardized feedstock supply. This is an assessment, not a numerical figure, but it follows directly from the intersection of capex, price differential, and market sensitivity reported by the sources.

Reuters also recalls an uncomfortable precedent: Renewcell, backed by H&M and active in the chemical recycling of cellulosic textiles, went bankrupt in 2024 before being acquired and renamed Circulose, without production having restarted yet. This point is fundamental because it shows that brands’ willingness to support circularity in theory does not automatically coincide with the ability of the business to hold up in practice. The sector does not lack storytelling; what it still lacks, in many cases, is a fully convincing proof of industrial bankability.

Why almost all recycled polyester still comes from bottles and not from clothing

The fact that 98% of recycled polyester comes from PET bottles is not accidental. Bottles are, by definition, a much more homogeneous stream: relatively standard composition, established collection systems, mature sorting processes, and markets already structured for recycling. Textile waste, by contrast, often arrives as complex mixtures of fibers, finishes, elastomers, dyes, metal accessories, use-related contamination, and poorly transparent compositions. Reuters also notes that this dependence on bottles is criticized because it diverts PET away from an already well-established recycling loop.

The European Commission described this clearly in its Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles: mixed fabrics, such as polyester blended with cotton, make recycling more difficult because of the limited availability of effective separation technologies; elastane can behave as a contaminant in almost all fiber recycling technologies, affecting both the economic feasibility and the environmental cost of the process; even the mixture of different types of polyester can worsen waste processability and the quality of the recycled material. It is therefore not merely a matter of building “more plants,” but of addressing a problem of product design and of the quality of incoming streams.

This leads to an uncomfortable but realistic conclusion: if clothing continues to be designed without considering end of life, plants like the one in Lacq will have to carry out a very costly “industrial remediation” effort in order to make recyclable what was never designed to be so. In this sector, the real circular economy does not begin downstream in the plant; it begins much earlier, upstream, in decisions regarding design, composition, labeling, and traceability.

Why France can be a favorable ground

The choice of France does not appear accidental. The French textile EPR system is among the most structured in Europe: Refashion’s 2026 guide recalls that the principle of extended producer responsibility for clothing, household linen, and footwear has been in force in France since January 1, 2007, and that those placing these products on the market must contribute to the competent eco-organization. In other words, France has for years had a regulatory infrastructure that economically recognizes end-of-life management in the textile sector.

The European framework is moving in the same direction as well. The European Commission includes among the pillars of its textile strategy requirements for ecodesign, the Digital Product Passport, measures against the release of microplastics, restrictions on the export of textile waste, and harmonized EPR rules for all Member States. The updated page on the Waste Framework Directive also specifies that the 2025 revision, which entered into force on October 16, 2025, aims precisely to harmonize the market for used textiles and textile waste, requiring each Member State to establish its own EPR scheme.

For the Reju project this matters enormously. A chemical recycling plant can become competitive more easily if it operates in a context where the costs of collection, sorting, preparation for reuse, and recycling are less and less entirely offloaded onto the spot market and increasingly accompanied by regulatory obligations and the economic responsibility of producers. This does not mean that regulation will solve everything, but it does mean that the profitability of the plant will not depend solely on the simple gap between the price of virgin polyester and that of regenerated polyester. This is a reasonable economic inference based on the EPR architecture described by official sources.

Why Lacq is an industrially credible site

Then there is the geographical and plant-related issue. Lacq is not a location chosen for image reasons, but a chemical industrial basin with existing infrastructure. SOBEGI’s official site describes Induslacq as a multi-company platform created on the former Total site, designed to support industrial performance through shared networks and services. The “Lacq Advantage” portal speaks of shared utilities, industrial water, water treatment, steam, safety services, maintenance, environmental control, rail infrastructure, and an ecosystem with companies, R&D centers, and an explicit logic of industrial ecology and by-product valorization.

For a chemical polyester recycling plant, this is a concrete lever for risk reduction. Having utilities already available, chemical expertise in the area, mutualized services, and an environment accustomed to handling complex industrial processes can reduce start-up time, indirect costs, and operational risk. Here too caution is needed: a good site does not eliminate business risk. But it makes more credible the hypothesis that Reju is not building a symbolic operation, but rather a project designed to interact with an already existing chemical infrastructure.

Can the Reju project really change the market?

The most serious answer is: it can change the direction of the market, but not yet its fundamental rules. Today the real recycled polyester market is still dominated by bottles, while textile-to-textile remains a minority route. Reju is trying to bridge precisely that gap with an industrial logic more robust than a simple pilot plant: backing from a major engineering group, proprietary technology, multiple sites, and an attempt to build an ecosystem for collection, sorting, and downstream adoption. All of this is relevant. But Reuters reminds us that the break-even point has not yet been demonstrated: the cost is high, final investment decisions are still pending, and the sector has already experienced significant failures or slowdowns.

The real turning point will come only if four conditions move together: the availability of better-sorted textile waste; garment design more compatible with recycling; credible offtake agreements from brands; and European regulation capable of rewarding recycled content without destroying industrial competitiveness. If even one of these pillars is missing, the Lacq plant risks remaining a technologically brilliant but economically fragile achievement. If, on the contrary, these factors converge, Lacq could be remembered as one of the places where polyester recycling stopped being a promise and began to become a real supply chain. This is a forward-looking assessment based on the industrial and regulatory data currently available.

Conclusion

Reju’s French project should not be read as an isolated piece of news, but as an indicator of the historical phase the European textile sector has entered. For years the sector has been able to display recycled polyester as a symbol of sustainability even when that recycled material came mainly from bottles. Today, however, the issue has shifted: the real question is no longer whether recycled polyester exists, but whether the fashion system is capable of recycling its own textile waste in an industrially serious way. The Lacq site is important precisely because it attempts to provide a concrete answer to this question.

But the decisive chapter in the Reju case has yet to be written. As long as the price of recycled material remains at least twice that of virgin material, as long as textile waste continues to be difficult to separate, and as long as garment design does not truly change, textile-to-textile will remain an advanced but still vulnerable frontier. In this sense, Lacq is at once an industrial promise and a test of truth for the entire circular economy of European textiles.

FAQ

What exactly will the new Reju plant in Lacq do?

It will transform post-consumer textiles into a regenerated raw material called rBHET, which will then be repolymerized into new PET intended for the production of recycled polyester for textile use. The project is promoted by Reju, a company controlled by Technip Energies.

How large will the French plant be?

Reuters indicates that the industrial sites planned by Reju are targeting around 50,000 tonnes per year each; the Lacq site is part of this industrial design.

Why is polyester textile-to-textile so important?

Because polyester is the dominant fiber worldwide and, despite the increase in recycled polyester, 98% of the recycled material currently available still comes from PET bottles, not from used clothing. Closing the loop on textiles is therefore the step that is still missing.

What is the project’s main economic obstacle?

Cost: Reuters reports that the recycled polyester produced by these plants will cost at least twice as much as virgin polyester. Added to this are high capex and an end market that remains highly price-sensitive.

Why are clothes harder to recycle than bottles?

Because textiles often contain mixed fibers, elastane, finishes, dyes, and different components that make separation more complex and raise process costs, while also worsening the quality of the recycled output.

Is France a favorable place for this kind of investment?

Yes, at least from a regulatory and industrial standpoint: France has had a textile EPR system in place since 2007, and Lacq is a chemical platform with shared utilities, industrial services, and an already well-structured production ecosystem.

Sources

Reuters, Technip Energies' polyester recycler Reju to build plant in France, February 13, 2026.

Technip Energies, Reju Announces Site Selection for French Regeneration Hub in Lacq Advancing Europe’s Circular Textile Infrastructure, February 13, 2026.

Technip Energies / Reju, Reju – Press Brief, February 12, 2026.

Textile Exchange, Materials Market Report 2025.

European Commission, EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles and Waste Framework Directive.

Refashion, Eco-fee guide 2026.

SOBEGI / Lacq Advantage / Chemparc, documentation on the Lacq industrial hub and the Induslacq platform.

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