Bio-based textiles in a sustainable and circular bioeconomy

Bio-based textiles can be made of natural, semi-synthetic and synthetic fibres. They can help reducing the use of virgin fossil-based synthetic materials, coupled with increasing textile-to-textile recycling and limiting over-production. This is challenging, as synthetic textile fibre production from fossil resources has grown significantly in the last years, reaching 67 % of the global market in 2023. Although cotton is the second most produced fibre at global level, the EU holds a minor share of the cotton market and it is expected to remain a net importer in the near future. Flax, hemp and wool are important sources of natural fibres that can be produced and pro-cessed fully within the EU. However, their val-ue chains are fragmented with small produc-tion volumes, resulting into a limited market share. For flax and hemp, in addition to a gen-eral up-scaling, the steps which have main room for improvements are ret-ting/degumming, spinning, modification and treatment of fibres and yarns. For wool, in-creasing production and use in Europe requires rebuilding a European infrastructure for col-lection and processing. Semi-synthetic man-made cellulosic fibres are obtained by a chemical conversion of cellu-lose. They are, after cotton, the most common bio-based fibre type. In addition to certified wood, important sources of cellulose with high untapped potential are agricultural residues, miscanthus and switchgrass from degraded lands, reallocated wood cellulose from paper to textile industry and end-of-life textiles. Polylactic Acid (PLA) is the only synthetic bio-based polyester fibre on the textile market. Although biodegradable, PLA has inferior per-formances than fossil polyesters and higher costs are often associated. Other fully bio-based synthetic fibres are still in their early developments. The bio-based synthetics pro-duction requires reliable and sustainable sources of bio-based monomers, as well as sufficient and efficient production infrastruc-ture and logistics. Knowledge gaps on sustainability of bio-based synthetics should be addressed.