Avery Dennison and ReCircled have joined forces to showcase how radio-frequency identification technology accelerates the sorting and recycling of used garments at commercial scale. The partnership demonstrates that RFID tags embedded in clothing can automate the identification and categorization process, reducing manual labor and human error during textile recovery.
ReCircled, a circular fashion platform, has integrated Avery Dennison's RFID solutions into its operations. The technology enables rapid scanning of garments, allowing sorters to quickly identify fabric composition, brand origin, and condition status. This automation removes bottlenecks that have traditionally limited textile recycling capacity to small, labor-intensive operations.
The initiative addresses a persistent industry challenge. Today, roughly 85 percent of textiles end up in landfills annually. Manual sorting of post-consumer clothing requires significant workforce investment and remains prone to errors that compromise material quality. RFID eliminates these friction points by encoding garment data directly into tags that machines can read instantly.
Avery Dennison has positioned its RFID technology as infrastructure for circular fashion. The company has spent years developing apparel-grade RFID solutions that withstand washing, drying, and recycling processes. This durability ensures tags remain readable across multiple product lifecycles, supporting closed-loop systems where garments circulate rather than dispose.
The ReCircled partnership validates what industry observers have predicted for years. RFID adoption in fashion requires proof of concept at operational scale, not just laboratory settings. By demonstrating functional sorting at commercial volumes, Avery Dennison and ReCircled signal that infrastructure for garment recovery exists today.
Brands collecting used inventory for resale or recycling now have a clear path to implement RFID systems. The technology works best when deployed at production, allowing manufacturers to tag garments from launch. However, retrofitting existing inventory remains possible,