We want to understand whether enzymatic recycling could give polyester textile waste new uses. That is a question, not a result.
Enzalebio is a pre-seed venture at the concept stage. We have not built or validated a recycling process, and we have not produced materials or garments. What follows is the ambition we want to test and the work it would take to test it.
Our proposed initial focus is PET, the polymer used in polyester textiles and many beverage bottles. We are not starting with plastics as a category, and we are not claiming that enzymes are a route to every plastic.
Within PET we want to concentrate on one feedstock: post-consumer polyester textiles. Mixed packaging, multi-layer films and litter are outside what we intend to study, because a concept-stage team can only test one thing properly at a time.
Polyester is the most widely used fibre in clothing, so polyester dominates the material that leaves wardrobes each year. A stream that large and that consistent is a stream worth studying before smaller, messier ones.
Collected textiles are largely landfilled, incinerated or downcycled into lower-value products. Mechanical recycling shortens fibres, so it cannot keep a garment in a loop indefinitely. That gap is the reason we are looking at a chemical route.
Textile businesses, sorters and recyclers are the partners we want to talk to first. Starting where the material and the conversations already are keeps the scope honest about what a small team can actually test.
Our proposed initial focus is PET, the polymer used in polyester textiles and many beverage bottles. Other polymers are out of scope until PET itself is understood.
We are not proposing a solution for mixed packaging, multi-layer films or litter. The feedstock we want to study is post-consumer polyester textiles.
Recovered material from clean PET is a different problem from recovered material from blended, dyed, worn clothing. We want to investigate the second one.
Any future environmental claim would first need defined metrics, lifecycle assessment and independent review. None of that exists yet.
Garments made with recovered material, and takeback schemes that collect worn clothing, are the applications that first come to mind. We present them as possibilities, not plans. We have no resourced plan for either: no pilot, no collection network, no agreements, and no timetable.
A garment's environmental impact also depends on far more than the fibre inside it. Manufacturing, dyes and finishes, trims, transport, how long and how often a garment is used, and what happens when it is discarded all matter. Recycling one polymer is one link in that chain, and a recycled garment would not automatically be a low-impact one.
If the testing shows the route does not work, or does not improve on what already exists, that is the answer we would report.