Activewear giant Lululemon has thrown its yoga pants into the ring with a $30 million Series A investment in Syntetica, a French startup claiming it can recycle two types of nylon that are currently harder to separate than conjoined twins. CEO Marco Bertone told TechCrunch that Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6 are a nightmare to sort from textile waste, which is why they end up in landfills alongside your forgotten New Year's resolutions.

Fashion brands are suddenly into circularity, mostly because customers are judging them - and because geopolitical oil turmoil has made nylon prices more volatile than a reality TV star. Bertone notes that brands relying on petrol-sourced synthetics have faced "massive shocks," which is startup-speak for "we told you so." Syntetica's solution: recycle nylon into pellets, not fabric, because apparently making raw materials is less glamorous but more pragmatic.

The startup has already partnered with Lululemon, Victoria's Secret, and Etam, with a market-ready recycling project expected early next year. It's also got backing from MAS Holdings, which is unusual for a supply chain giant to invest in an unproven player - but hey, desperate times call for desperate synthetics. Syntetica's secret weapon includes a CTO who survived the Northvolt battery flameout and a chemistry researcher met through a startup matchmaking accelerator. Because nothing says "sustainable chemistry" like a dating app for founders.

The company plans to build facilities worldwide, close to waste and textile production, but for now it's focused on producing hundreds of tons of pellets per year. France is footing part of the bill via Bpifrance's Ecotechnologies 2 fund and the European Innovation Council, which is part of a broader plan to make Europe less dependent on fossil fuels - and more dependent on French startups. Competitors include enzymatic plastic-eaters and chemical giant BASF, but Bertone is rooting for them all: "If everyone were to scale to tens of factories, we still wouldn’t solve this problem. Everyone needs to succeed for us to succeed as a society." Or, as Lululemon might put it, "Together, we're all in this stretchy, circular mess."