TERRE aims to become an European circular infrastructure for textile recycling project, initiated by Dr. Corina Ross and Peter Ross from Ross Consulting & Solutions linking waste management, sustainable construction, and post-war reconstruction. By transforming textile waste into high-performance insulation materials, the project demonstrates how design, materials science, and circular economy strategies can directly contribute to climate action and resilient rebuilding.
TERRE (Textile Environmental Recycling for Reconstruction and Energy efficiency) is a circular-economy initiative designed to collect, sort, and recycle post-consumer and industrial textile waste into thermal and acoustic insulation materials for the reconstruction of buildings damaged during the war in Ukraine. The project transforms discarded textiles—including clothing, household fabrics, industrial offcuts, and mixed fiber materials—into nonwoven insulation panels, rolls, and construction composites used in sustainable building systems.
The project responds simultaneously to two urgent challenges:
- the growing global textile waste crisis, and
- the massive need for sustainable reconstruction materials in Ukraine.
Through mechanical fiber recovery technologies similar to those used by initiatives such as Re:inventex, textile waste is shredded, separated, and reprocessed into regenerated fibers that can be converted into insulation materials for buildings and infrastructure. These technologies can recover up to 95% of textile waste as secondary raw materials, significantly reducing landfill disposal and enabling new circular material flows.