The UK government is inviting organisations to apply for funding under a multi-million pound grant scheme to boost recycling of textiles. This could include machinery for recycling textiles, technology for disassembling or sorting textiles, automated processes for removing items such as zips, and technology to sort textiles by fibre type and colour. There has been a 14 per cent drop in clothing thrown away in the UK since 2012, as well as a more than 11 per cent drop in carbon footprint per tonne of clothing, and a more than 17 per cent drop in water usage achieved by the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) signatories between 2012 and 2017. In addition to textiles, organisations in England can apply for government funding for innovative solutions to drive up the recycling of hard-to-recycle plastic packaging such as plastic trays, pots and tubs, plastic films and pouches. This could include innovative sorting or segregation equipment, and smarter systems to enable sorting of different polymers. The UK generates around 2.4 million tonnes of packaging waste per year. Around 40 per cent of all plastic produced in the UK is used in the packaging of goods. In 2015, there were 300,000 tonnes of clothing in the UK going to landfill or incineration. “We are committed to going further and faster to reduce, reuse, recycle and cut waste. Valuable waste ending up in landfill makes no sense environmentally or economically,” said UK environment minister Thérèse Coffey. “We are making progress but there is more to do, and I encourage organisations to apply for our multi-million pound grant to drive-up the recycling of these valuable materials,” she added. The latest announcement builds on the government’s landmark Resources and Waste Strategy—which sets out how following the overhaul of the packaging regulations which will see producers pay the full cost of managing their waste the government will place greater responsibility on producers to make their items easier to reuse and recycle. Textiles is a key priority area for action.
Source – Fibre2Fashion.
