RECYCLING POLYESTER
Project Plan B
Who are Project Plan B?
Project Plan B’s vision is to make the term no end of use a reality for the corporate workwear industry.
Currently nearly 40 million workwear garments are provided to wearers across the UK every year, 90% of which end up incinerated or in landfill. Waste, CO2 emissions, and the use of non renewable resources are the main issues faced by the textile industry in the creation of polyester workwear.
By pioneering a closed-loop recycled polyester system where virgin polyester is no longer required, eliminating waste and reducing CO2 emissions. Project Plan B aim to create a textile climate where everyone wins: using quality fibres to create performance garments with no compromise to the environment.
By using their Designed to be Recycled approach, designing with the end in mind, Project Plan B create a circular polyester cycle. Every fabric, trim, accessory, thread and label are carefully selected to ensure standards for reuse and at the end of a garments wearable life, it can be turned back into raw polyester before being remade as a new garment. Again and again.
Why use Polyester? Why not use natural fibres?
We understand that switching to natural fibres isn’t the answer for workwear. Currently natural fibres do not have the longevity, colour fastness or dimensional stability required for daily use in tough environments.
We have made an ongoing commitment as a business to be pushing the boundaries and identifying opportunities for continued development.
So what news?
An exciting new project titled "Project Re:claim", a joint venture between Project Plan B and Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd (SATCoL):
To further help textile waste, Project Plan B have developed an exclusive polyester recycling system which will open in September 2023 at the SATCoL processing centre in Kettering. SATCol is the UK’s largest charity textile collector, which already sorts and processes around 65,000 tonnes of donated textiles every year. Majonne Frost, Head of Environment & Sustainability at SATCoL, said: “Last year SATCoL enabled reuse and recycling of over 250 million products but there are always items which are too damaged and we cannot resell and they are often garments made from polyester.
“With this new technology we can give these clothes a new lease of life. So when your favourite jumper is worn-out, we will take it and turn it into polyester pellets, ready to be turned back into a new jumper. This is the future of fashion.”
To maximise the volume and potential of the polyester recycling, SATCoL cannot rely on clothing bank donations alone, so are searching for corporate partners to commit to donating 100% polyester textiles now, such as used hotel linen or post-event promotional banners.
SATCoL already has the UK’s only automated textile sorting facility, Fibersort. Based at the charity’s purpose-built Processing Centre in Kettering, Fibersort automatically identifies and sorts second-hand textiles by fibre type and is the first step in textile-to-textile recycling.
This additional new technology is the next step towards SATCoL’s ambition to create the UK’s first fibre farm, with the aim of massively scaling up textile-to-textile recycling of all types of materials. This presents a huge opportunity for the fashion circular economy.
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Sources:
https://bftt.org.uk/funded_project/project-plan-b/
https://projectplanb.co.uk/project/project-plan-b-selected-for-bftts-prestigious-creative-rd-programme-to-accelerate-sustainable-innovation
https://projectplanb.co.uk/the-project
https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/news/satcol-unveils-world-first-recycling-system-reduce-waste