[icegreentea2]

That's not what the article, or the paper backing it claims.

The paper (https://circulareconomyjournal.org/ojs/JoCE/article/view/250) is about quantifying the environmental impact of material losses that happen in a typical scenario, including a single full recycle (as opposed to reuse).

The paper relies heavily on another paper (https://circulareconomyjournal.org/ojs/JoCE/article/view/250) for estimates of upstream material losses. That paper attempted to quantify production stage losses from raw fiber, into fabric, and then into apparel by surveying factories in Bangladesh for their mass input/outputs for different production stages.