SuperCircle estimates a $170 billion opportunity for apparel brands to consolidate resale, repair and textile-to-textile recycling in a single aftermarket ecosystem — a figure now colliding with California's textile Extended Producer Responsibility bill SB 707.

Speaking at Sourcing Journal's annual fall Sourcing Summit in New York on Tuesday, SuperCircle co-founder and CEO Chloe Songer framed circularity as a multi-part operating system rather than a single solution.

"Circularity is the sum of many pieces," Songer said. "It's not just resale. It's not just donation. It's not just recycling."

What does the $170 billion figure actually cover?

Songer's estimate captures apparel retail goods currently routed through separate resale, donation and recycling streams. She said 85 percent of clothing is exported and ultimately reaches landfill or incineration, with disposal costs absorbed by municipalities, taxpayers and institutions such as Goodwill Savers Corp.

"Right now, the brand is paying when it's within their supply chain, and that cost is paid for municipally by the consumer, by their tax dollars, by Goodwill," Songer said.

How is Guess using the takeback data?

SuperCircle powers Guess's U.S. takeback program, which credits U.S. consumers $5 per item for Guess and non-Guess garments. Guess then routes the sorted clothing to Homeboy Threads, a California-certified social enterprise, for textile-to-textile recycling.

Courtney Culbreath, associate director of CSR and ESG at Guess? Inc., said the program is generating upstream design intelligence. Guess tracks garment type, fiber content and return frequency, comparing long-life denim against fast fashion returns.

Where does recycled cotton stand on price?

Recover chief product officer Enes Adak said the company's recycled fiber now sits at cost parity with virgin cotton — or 20 to 30 cents cheaper per unit — with greater stability than volatile spot pricing. He cautioned that blends dictate end use.

"Cotton-polyester, cellulose or some other cotton blends can still be manageable, but their recyclability ultimately depends on the end product," Adak said.

Is repair still economic after offshore shifts?

Darn It! CEO Jeff Glassman, whose firm handles rework, refurbishment and repair for apparel and footwear, said production relocations are pushing more defects into U.S. warehouses.

"Pushing everything overseas has caused a lot of quality issues, and when my retail customers change factories, there's a lot of turnover in quality," Glassman said. Repair remains the cheaper option in roughly 99 percent of the cases Darn It! reviews, he added.

What does SB 707 demand from brands?

SuperCircle has monitored the California bill for three years. Songer's principal concern is that EPR funding not flow solely through municipal systems, which she warned would push compliance costs onto consumers and freeze out private downstream operators.

"Sustainability alone is really a big ask from both sides — on the supply chain and retailers — and looking at the economics and financial situation in the world, every cent counts," Adak said.

The sourcing and compliance decision facing apparel buyers is whether to direct SB 707-mandated EPR contributions toward private reverse-logistics partners such as SuperCircle, Recover and Darn It! — preserving access to return data and P&L upside — or default to municipal channels that Songer said would erase both.