CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 2026 — Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a fully recyclable polyethylene-based yarn that delivers stretch and strength comparable to conventional spandex-containing textiles, potentially offering a new route to reducing textile waste and enabling closed-loop textile recycling.

♻️ The research, published in ACS Materials Letters, addresses one of the textile industry's biggest recycling challenges. Around 80% of textiles sold in the U.S. contain spandex, a polyurethane-based fiber that is typically combined with polyester or nylon. Because these materials cannot be economically separated after use, most stretch garments are sent to landfill or incineration rather than recycled.

🧶 MIT researchers designed a new elastic yarn using two polyethylene-based materials—one providing elasticity and the other mechanical strength. Since both components belong to the same polymer family, the yarn can be melted and reprocessed without chemical separation.

📊 In laboratory tests, the researchers melted and respun the yarn 10 consecutive times, finding that it retained mechanical properties comparable to the original material, including strength and flexibility.

The manufacturing process also relies on conventional melt-spinning technology. Polyethylene resin pellets are heated to approximately 177°C (350°F), extruded into fine fibers and assembled into a core-sheath yarn using industrial spinning equipment.

Beyond recyclability, the researchers say the material could replace conventional spandex-polyester and spandex-nylon yarns in applications requiring elasticity while simplifying end-of-life recycling.

🚀 The team now plans to produce industrial-scale yarn suitable for knitting and weaving into garments. If commercialized, polyethylene textiles could potentially be collected through existing plastic recycling systems and remanufactured into new fibers or other plastic products, supporting a more circular textile economy.

The research was led by Svetlana Boriskina and SeongHyeon Kim from MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, together with Duo Xu, Volodymyr Korolovych, Domingo Flores-Hernandez, Kaniz Moriam and Daniel Braconnier.

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), ACS Materials Letters