Textile materials have two essential characteristics: one is technical, resulting from the choice of fibers and their assembly into fabrics, the second is aesthetic, linked to the material and its finishing. The value of a textile object is associated with both technical and aesthetics, it is linked to actual wear and tear completed with the attachment of the consumer. The end of life of these textiles can occur because they are worn and damaged or because they are not liked anymore or considered outdated.

The GreeenLocal3D project focuses on models and experiments to facilitate the short circuit recycling of post-consumer plastic waste to be recovered and enhanced by additive manufacturing (AM) processes. In a new "distributed recycling" paradigm, this process must be accomplished by affordable and flexible technologies that cover a limited geographical area to form the basic unit of a "smart recycling network". More specifically, the objective is to study the possibility through AM to revalorize previously unsorted and/or unrecycled types of plastics.

Several issues have been identified concerning the recycling of plastics during the analysis of the state of the art. Firstly, the presence of contaminants and the disassembly of complex structures appear as major issue and limit the development of mechanical recycling of plastics. On the other hand, tertiary recycling or chemical recycling is in its infancy and fundamental knowledge in this field is still needed to allow its spreading at different scales.