A joint venture between the Salvation Army Trading Company and Project Plan B – a UK workwear clothing manufacturer committed to sustainability – has successfully launched the country’s first commercial-scale, post-consumer polyester recycling plant.
Developed to provide a solution to the issue of the UK’s polyester textile waste, the new plant – now up and running in Kettering, Northamptonshire – will recycle post-consumer garments and other textiles and supply the raw material back into the fashion and textile industries.
Polyester is recognised as the biggest and fastest growing textile fibre in the world. The UK alone is responsible for the production of half a million tonnes of polyester textile waste a year with much of that waste currently sent to landfill or incinerated.
Virgin polyester is made using fossil fuels and crude oils while textile-to-textile recycling enables a circular value chain. This means textile fibres can be recycled over and over again and returned to supply chains.
The new plant, which operates under the title Project Re:claim was first installed in January this year but is only now fully operational. The plant is now on track to recycle 2,500 tonnes of unwanted polyester this year, with a further 5,000 tonnes in year two.
Project Re:claim’s technology produces polyester pellets which can be spun into yarn for use in textiles along with other industrial applications. These pellets are expected to be integrated into the manufacturing process of new products later this year.
Majonne Frost, head of environment and sustainability at the Salvation Army Trading Company, said: “This partnership brings together the large-scale collection and processing capabilities of The Salvation Army, with the cutting-edge technology developed by Porject Plan B and Pure Loop. Together, we are working to bring new solutions and services, at scale, that will help create a textile circular economy.”
Project Re:claim is a textile recycling partner of the Circular Textiles Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation driving the transition to circularity for the UK textiles industry.
