Textiles Recycling and Re-use Grant

• This grant supported projects enabling textile waste materials to be recycled or re-used, diverting this from landfill or incineration, so that it remains a valuable resource. Focus was given to clothing and linen textiles and projects demonstrating a level of innovation beyond normal industry practice.
• Funding was awarded through the Resource Action Fund to commercial and not-for-profit organisations for capital expenditure such as equipment costs and technologies enabling the recycling and/or re-use of textile waste materials sourced from either post-consumer textiles from municipal sources or pre-consumer (or post-industrial) textiles for recycling projects.

This video showcase the great work undertaken by SATCol who received a grant under the Fund.

Grants awarded

Projects were awarded where they were aiming to address one or more of the following challenges to reprocessing and re-using textiles:

• Quality and quantity of feedstocks may not be cost effectively and efficiently processed using manual sorting alone
• Newer recycling processes, such as chemical recycling, may not currently be commercially feasible, despite longer-term economic potential
• The development of technical processes and more supply chain integration to enable scale up to a commercial size
• Perceptions of post-consumer textile use by consumers, retailers and brands.

Five organisations across England were awarded funding for projects aiming to divert a total of 13,970 of textiles from becoming waste.