Government funds new UK Textiles Circularity Centre
Public body UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has announced that it will invest £22.5 million to help set up five new centres to explore ways of reusing waste materials in the move towards a circular economy.
Of the five new UKRI interdisciplinary circular economy centres, one will focus specifically on textiles and apparel. This new facility will be called the Interdisciplinary Textiles Circularity Centre.
Led by the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, it will aim to lessen the environmental impact of clothing in the UK. It will use household waste and used textiles to develop new textiles instead of relying on imported materials.
“The emission levels caused by the UK’s textiles industry are almost as high as the total CO2 emitted through people using cars for private trips,” UKRI said on making the announcement.
Each of the five centres will receive £4.5 million in funding, with a further £2.5 million available for each of them to set up “integration hubs” with small and medium enterprises.
At the time of the announcement, the RCA’s Professor Sharon Baurley, who will be the director of the Textiles Circularity Centre, commented: “The environmental and human costs of fashion are huge. Covid-19 has brought into sharp relief the link between human activity and damage to the environment.
The time is ripe to explore an alternative model for fashion-apparel. Our circular economy system design proposes to do just that by introducing a new relationship between materials and human wellbeing and by innovating circular fibres and textiles.”
Image: Burberry Material Futures. Credit:Shaun James Cox.
