Tomra, Circle-8 Are Trying to Shape the UK’s Textile Recycling Future

While the Textile Recycling Association is sounding the alarm on the collapse of the United Kingdom’s textile recycling sector, two organizations have entered into a collaboration agreement to advance development toward the country’s first automated textiles sorting and pre-processing facility (ATSP) for non-reusable textiles.

Recycling tech company Tomra partnered with Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems, a firm working toward unlocking textile-to-textile recycling in the UK, to address the estimated 700,000 tons of non-reusable textiles generated annually across the pond. 

More from Sourcing Journal

• Innovation Amidst Crisis: Textile Recycling's Wake-Up Call

• Circular Fashion Needs 'Everyone to Want to Make This Work'

• Can Syre Succeed Where Renewcell Failed?

“Automated sorting and pre-processing of non-reusable textiles is crucial to enabling a truly circular textiles value chain by turning non-reusable textiles into high quality feedstock required by existing and emerging textile-to-textile recyclers,” said Cyndi Rhoades, co-founder and CEO of Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems.

Last summer, the UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT) led a 4-million-pound (about $5 million) project to develop and pilot an ATSP through the Autosort for Circular Textiles Demonstrator (ACT UK) two-year plan. Circle-8 is a “major partner” in ACT UK, receiving a “significant share” of a roughly $5 million grant from Innovate UK—with a consortium of 21 industry partners—to design and develop a blueprint for the UK’s first ATSP.

As a key member of ACT UK, Circle-8 is working with stakeholders throughout the value chain to “realize” a circular textile systems economy. Through its independent collaboration with Tomra, Circle-8 will pull from the tech firm’s existing experience (Tomra was the main technology provider for the world’s first ATSP in Sweden) to develop solutions designed for this future ATSP in the UK.

The duo will conduct a feasibility study—the initial assessment of a proposed project to determine if it will succeed—for that ATSP and whether it can be eventually scaled up.

Utilizing learnings from the Swedish research project, the feasibility study aims to devise an automated solution for textile sorting by fiber composition and color as well as the removal of “disruptors”—zippers, buttons and trims—and cutting materials to sizes that make them “suitable” for textile-to-textile recycling processes.

“Realizing textile circularity at scale will require regulations and incentives, infrastructure investments, and a strong digital core. But most of all, it will require collaboration and co-creation of solutions across the value chain. Tomra has more than 50 years of experience in developing technologies enabling the shift from linear to circular,” said Vibeke Krohn, head of Tomra Textiles, a business venture set up by Tomra to develop transformative solutions for enabling textile circularity. “In collaboration with Circle-8 and their network of retailers and brands in the UK, we hope to make meaningful progress on designing a solution for sorting and pre-processing of non-reusable textiles.”