How REI Could Reshape Outdoor Gear with Circular Polyester
Less than 1% of fabrics worldwide are made from recycled textiles. REI's latest partnership aims to change that.
Updated:
Jun 30, 2026Table of contents
Despite what you may think, most recycled polyester isn't made from old clothing. In reality, it's made from plastic bottles—but Ambercycle, a Los Angeles-based materials science company, wants to change that. Ambercycle is on a mission to make recycled polyester from discarded textiles, and in late 2025, it found a new partner to take its vision to the mass market: REI Co-op, one of the outdoor industry’s retail giants. By signing a three-year agreement to incorporate Ambercycle's Cycora regenerated polyester into future products, REI could help popularize one of the outdoor industry's most promising solutions to textile waste. Here’s why that matters.
A Polyester Planet
Polyester is the world’s most-used fiber, accounting for almost 60% of fabric production in 2024. It’s especially prevalent in the outdoor gear market, with nearly every T-shirt, pair of hiking pants, and fleece jacket featuring the high-performance synthetic. Unfortunately, polyester, like other synthetic materials, is made from fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource, and thus has a high carbon footprint.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many brands have turned to an unlikely feedstock: discarded plastic bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Because PET bottles and polyester share the same chemical structure, bottles can be transformed into fabric. The statistics aren’t cut-and-dry, but life cycle analyses show that recycled polyester (rPET) has a 50-75% smaller footprint than virgin polyester, making it a common way for brands to reduce their emissions. To learn more about recycled fabrics in outdoor gear, check out our deep dive.
The Recycled Polyester Problem
While recycled polyester is growing in popularity, it still represented just 12% of polyester production in 2024. And nearly all of it—98%, to be exact—was made from discarded plastic bottles rather than used textiles.
At first glance, turning discarded plastic bottles into T-shirts, fleece jackets, and hiking pants seems like a win-win. It reduces the need for virgin fossil fuels while giving waste a second life. The challenge is that plastic bottles already have an established recycling stream. In many cases, a bottle can be recycled back into another bottle multiple times. Once it is turned into clothing, however, recycling becomes much more difficult because fabrics are often blended with other materials such as spandex, nylon, or wool. As a result, many recycled polyester garments ultimately end up in a landfill at the end of their lives.
Turning bottles into backpacks has pros and cons—it reduces carbon emissions associated with virgin fabrics, but does little to address waste. And textile waste is a major global problem, with the United Nations Environmental Program citing that 100 million tons of textile waste is produced annually. In the U.S., the EPA estimated that clothing and footwear accounted for about 5% of municipal solid waste in 2018 (the most recent available data). With limited end-of-life solutions for outdoor apparel and outerwear, the vast majority of used clothing and gear ends up in the trash—and this high-volume waste has tremendous impacts on the planet.
This is the problem Ambercycle hopes to solve. Rather than relying on plastic bottles as a feedstock, the company uses discarded textiles to create new polyester. The approach has two benefits: It allows bottles to remain in their own recycling stream while tackling the outdoor industry's growing textile waste problem.
REI Invests in Textile-to-Textile Recycling
In late 2025, REI committed to a three-year offtake agreement with Ambercycle, investing in textile-to-textile recycling to address both emissions and textile waste. Under the agreement, REI plans to incorporate Ambercycle’s Cycora regenerated polyester (made from discarded textiles) across several performance categories, with the aim of scaling up use as Ambercycle expands its capacity. Cycora’s carbon footprint is around half that of virgin polyester, putting it on par with other recycled fabrics, while also addressing the textile waste crisis.
REI designers are currently redesigning products with Cycora polyester, with plans to launch Cycora products by 2027.
How is Cycora Polyester Made?
Cycora polyester is a groundbreaking development because it is made entirely of post-consumer and post-industrial textile waste. Ambercycle collects and sorts textiles, which are then shredded and fed into its machines to separate polyester from other fibers (like cotton and wool). Dyes and finishes are removed, and the purified PET is made into plastic pellets, which can then be made into polyester fabric.
Why REI’s Commitment Matters
In 2024, only 2% of recycled polyester came from recycled textiles. It’s a small share of the market for multiple reasons: Brands have said that although the technology has existed for some time, it has been difficult to scale due to cost, complexity, and collection constraints.
Blended fabrics can only be broken down using chemical processing techniques, which is significantly more expensive than the mechanical recycling methods used for plastic bottles, such as shredding and melting. Removing zippers, buttons, and coatings can be labor-intensive, and in most places, there is no infrastructure to collect clothing for recycling. All in all, the process is expensive and energy- and labor-intensive, especially in a take-make-waste economic model.
To make textile-to-textile recycling economically viable, brands must commit to supporting textile recyclers by consistently buying recycled fabrics, which are significantly more expensive than generic polyester. A multi-year agreement, like REI’s commitment to Ambercycle, allows recyclers to scale up production with the security of a consistent buyer. Economies of scale drive prices down, making new technology more affordable for smaller brands.
In a press release, REI described how its industry influence could help scale low-impact materials:
"As the nation’s largest specialty outdoor retailer, REI is uniquely positioned to help mature the market for regenerated polyester. Many popular REI Co-op brand products contain polyester… [and] the co-op further engages its thousand brand partners to advance more sustainable and inclusive business practices via its Product Impact Standards. Taken together, the purchasing power of the co-op's customers and members can help mainstream the use of lower-carbon materials across a huge variety of outdoor gear and apparel."
Whether textile-to-textile recycling becomes mainstream remains to be seen. But if the outdoor industry hopes to reduce both textile waste and its reliance on fossil fuels, technologies like Cycora will likely play an important role—and REI's commitment is one of the strongest signals yet that the industry is ready to help grow them.
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