ACT UK updates with recycling reports
The UK-based Automatic-sorting for Circularity in Textiles (ACT) initiative has published two reports authored by consortium partner WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme).
ACT UK is a two-year initiative uniting recycling technologists, textile manufacturers, brands and retailers, collectors, sorters and academia, aiming to create a blueprint for an Advanced Textile Sorting and Pre-processing (ATSP) facility to process non-rewearable textiles and enable fibre-to-fibre recycling at scale.
The partners say around 744,000 tonnes of non-reusable textiles (NRTs) are discarded in the UK annually, with the majority (52%) disposed in residual waste streams and headed to incineration or landfill. For the NRTs that are collected (206,000 tonnes), only 27,000 tonnes are recycled in an open-loop process in the UK or Europe, and just 1,000 tonnes in closed-loop.
The first report, ‘Advanced Textile Sorting and Pre-processing Facilities: The Business Case’, suggests a route to manage the UK’s non-reusable textiles, including cost modelling to increase the value of this feedstock.
The second report, ‘Transitioning to a UK Circular Textiles Ecosystem’, looks at the wider social, environmental and economic impacts, as well as the benefits that circularity could bring to the fashion sector.
ACT UK will publish a final report in the second quarter.
