The second UK Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT) and Textile Livery Group conference took place in Drapers’ Hall in late September. Taking as a theme sustainability in action, the conference once again focussed on good practice and practical steps towards those environmental goals. Twelve of the City Livery Companies combined with the major fashion and textile trade body to put on the conference that was attended by HRH the Princess Royal, President of UKFT. Alongside a range of excellent speakers, with a keynote speech from M & S, the conference also promoted careers in textiles and advertised its Young Textile Technician Fund which supports businesses training young technicians. Of particular interest was the launch of the Sustainability 101 Series that is a set of publications developed to give unbiased guidance about topics such as textile certification schemes. What became clear in the presentations is that there is a plethora of accreditation schemes that are all worthy in their own right but can be overwhelming and over bureaucratic as well as expensive and confusing to comply with. Further guides will follow on communicating your green claims, environmental audits, emissions reporting and EU regulations and reporting.
UKFT are themselves leading a £4million project to develop a fully integrated automated sorting and pre-processing demonstrator. This will aim to divert thousands of tonnes from landfill. The Automatic-sorting for Circular Textiles Demonstrator (ACT UK) is a two-year project that will support the transition from uneconomic manual sorting of clothes and textiles that are not suitable for resale to highly-automated sorting and pre-processing, which can then be used as feedstock for existing and emerging recycling processes.
ACT UK brings together a consortium of recycling technologies, textile collectors/sorters, academia, manufacturers, industry associations, technologists and brands/retailers, supported with funding from Innovate UK. It is part of a broader Circular Fashion Programme supported by Innovate UK, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), all part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Today over 1 million tonnes of used textiles are generated annually in the UK. Estimates suggest that a third of these are non-rewearable textiles (NRT) which are currently being lost to landfill/incineration or are being exported, to be sorted in lower cost labour regions.
Manual sorting of used textiles has its limitations. It is not possible to sort garments by fibre composition ‘by eye’ and pre-processing (button, zip and trim removal) and sizing steps required by textile recyclers haven’t been optimised and customised to meet their individual specifications. No scaled process currently exists which brings all of this into one industrial process or facility.
ACT UK will build on sorting approaches that are currently coming to market in countries such as the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The UK approach will innovate, combine and advance existing and new supporting technologies to overcome current barriers to materials circularity.
This proved to be a really fascinating and productive day with innovation and sustainability at the heart of the message.
Alderman Alison Gowman