DyeRecycle: Scaling up circularity in textiles
The BDC has been instrumental in accelerating DyeRecycle's mission to transform how the fashion industry handles textile waste.
The Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC) has been instrumental in accelerating DyeRecycle's mission to transform how the fashion industry handles textile waste. By providing access to specialist facilities, technical expertise, and key industry connections, the BDC has helped this pioneering startup de-risk its technology and move closer to commercial scale — without the burden of significant upfront capital investment.
DyeRecycle, a pre-seed company, has developed a chemical technology that extracts and recycles valuable dyes from textile waste. This addresses one of the fashion industry's most pressing environmental challenges: conventional dyeing processes and the linear "take-make-dispose" model that together contribute significantly to global pollution. By recovering high-quality dyes for reuse while also improving fibre recyclability, DyeRecycle is helping to establish a genuinely circular system within the industry.
The BDC partnership proved critical across several areas. Kilogram-level pilot projects were made possible through access to bespoke equipment, allowing DyeRecycle to test various configurations and processing conditions at lower financial risk. The BDC's analytical capabilities helped characterise materials, refine the dye extraction process, and verify the quality of recovered dyes. Beyond the technical, the BDC facilitated introductions to equipment manufacturers and potential industry partners, while cross-industry insights opened new possibilities for the technology's development and application.
The collaboration has meaningfully accelerated DyeRecycle's path to commercialisation. The data and insights gathered are now directly informing the design of a dedicated pilot plant — the company's next major milestone. Their ambition is to process significantly larger volumes of textile waste, producing commercially viable quantities of recycled dyes and fibres at scale.
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