NEW YORK – A new textile recycling plant opened by the company Renewcell in the small coastal city of Sundsvall, Sweden, is so big that employees use bikes to get from one end of the production line to the other.

Large bales of cotton waste are dumped on conveyor belts, shredded and then broken down into a wet slurry, with the help of chemicals. That slurry, known as dissolving pulp, is then bleached, dried, stamped into sheets of what looks like recycled craft paper, given the brand name Circulose, and shipped off to manufacturers to be made into textiles like viscose for clothes.