COLOURizd at the Textiles Recycling Expo in Brussels Stand 2512- Recap

COLOURizd joined recyclers, mills, brands, and policymakers from across the industry at the second Textiles Recycling Expo in Brussels on June 24–25, 2026. There's no better place for this conversation: Europe is where textile circularity is moving from ambition to regulation, and where the pressure to use more recycled fibre is most real.

We came with a message the recycling conversation doesn't hear often enough: the ceiling on recycled content isn't a collection problem or a sorting problem. It's a fibre strength problem. Mechanically recycled fibres come back shorter, weaker, and more variable — and conventional wet dyeing weakens them further at exactly the moment they can least afford it.

As Jennifer Thompson, CEO & Co-Founder, wrote in the run-up to the show: "The weaker the yarn going in, the more we give back." In trials on mechanically recycled denim yarns at 20%, 30%, and 50% recycled content, QuantumCOLOUR™ delivered strength gains across the board — with yarns at 50% recycled content gaining over 20% in strength. Because QuantumCOLOUR™ applies colour without immersion, fibre reaction, or repeated wet processing, it preserves the fibre structure recycling works so hard to recover — using approximately one litre of water per kilogram of yarn, with zero wastewater discharge.

The conversations in Brussels confirmed what we keep hearing across the industry: everyone wants higher recycled content, and almost everyone is hitting the same wall. We believe coloration is the overlooked lever for getting past it.

Read Jennifer's full article: Nobody in This Industry Is Looking to Color to Solve the Recycled Fiber Problem. Maybe They Should.