Amino Material Tech has officially commenced construction of a chemical recycling plant in Lianyungang, China, targeting one of the textile industryโs most stubborn waste streams: poly-blended fabrics that conventional mechanical recycling cannot process.
The Qingdao-headquartered company broke ground on the facility after signing an investment agreement a year earlier with the Jiangsu Lianyungang Economic Development Zone and Lianyungang Industrial Investment Group. That June 2025 agreement committed the parties to building what was described as the worldโs first 100,000-ton facility dedicated to chemical recycling of textile waste, intended to supply global fashion brands with certified recycled fibers.
Phase I of the Lianyungang plant is expected to come online between mid-2027 and early 2028, with a feedstock treatment capacity of 12,000 tonnes per year, split across two workshops of 6,000 tonnes each. The facility will output two branded recycled materials: rElastane yarn under the name Re:lastane, and rPolyester chips and yarn under the name Regedet.
The plantโs initial focus is polyester-elastane blends, among the most difficult textile waste streams to separate using mechanical methods because the two fibers are tightly interwoven at the molecular level. Company materials describe further scale-up phases that would extend the process to other blends, including polyester-cotton, which represents a far larger share of global textile waste.
Notably, the developer says the facility will run entirely on zero-carbon nuclear steam and certified green electricity, positioning the plant as a low-carbon alternative to conventional chemical recycling operations, which are typically energy-intensive.
Poly-blended garments, particularly stretch fabrics combining polyester with elastane, have long been considered near-impossible to recycle at scale. Mechanical recycling methods shred and reprocess fibers without separating them chemically, which degrades fiber quality and limits blended materials to downcycled applications such as insulation or industrial padding.
Amino says its chemical recycling process dissolves these blends and recovers more than 99% of constituent fibers at high purity, addressing what the company has called the industryโs textile waste problem. The company was established in 2020 under the name Qingdao Amino Material Technology, with a focus on research, development and industrial application of technologies for recycling waste textiles, particularly the separation of polyester and polyester-blended fabrics.
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Founder and CEO Debin Mao has previously said the company was the first in the world to recycle polyester-elastane blends, and that its low-temperature, water-free process protects fiber quality while reducing costs compared with competing chemical recycling technologies. Mao has also indicated that polyester-cotton separation is a research priority, a development that he said could represent a ten-fold increase in the addressable market given how much larger the poly-cotton waste stream is than poly-elastane.
The Lianyungang project adds to a wave of chemical recycling investment in Jiangsu province, where local authorities have been courting new-materials manufacturing as part of a broader industrial upgrading strategy. China has separately opened large-scale chemical recycling capacity for mixed plastics elsewhere in the country, underscoring Beijingโs growing emphasis on circular-economy infrastructure across both plastics and textiles.
For apparel brands, a commercial-scale source of certified recycled elastane and polyester would address a long-standing supply gap. Stretch fabrics are ubiquitous in activewear, denim and intimate apparel, yet brands have had few credible options for recycled content in these categories, often relying on virgin synthetic fiber or low-grade mechanically recycled material that cannot meet performance specifications.
Industry observers will be watching whether Amino can hit its mid-2027 commissioning target and whether the recovered fiber meets the quality and cost benchmarks needed for brands to integrate it into mainstream supply chains at scale. The company has said in past interviews that it was already in discussions with roughly twenty brands and textile stakeholders regarding pilot agreements, though it is not yet clear how many of those discussions have converted into binding offtake commitments tied to the new plant.
If the facility delivers on its stated capacity and timeline, it would mark a significant step toward closing the loop on one of fashionโs most persistent waste categories, giving brands a verifiable pathway from discarded poly-blend garments back into new yarn.