UK waste recycling charity WRAP is offering £1.5 million (US$1.75 million) in grants to support projects that provide innovative ways for textile waste to be recycled or re-used.

Grants of between £20,000 and £170,000 are available to organisations of any size, both commercial and not-for-profit, for schemes which keep more textiles out of landfill or incineration.

Beneficiaries will need to put up match funding - 10 per cent from not-for-profit and 50 per cent from commercial organisations - towards successful projects which will also need to demonstrate “innovation beyond normal practice”.

The money is part of the £18m Resource Action Fund set up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to support key priority policy areas.

It can be spent only on capital expenditure, for equipment or technologies (excluding software and apps) that enable recycling or re-use of clothing or linen waste textiles.

WRAP says that increased textiles collection and reprocessing is needed in the UK to help deliver the Government's Resource and Waste Strategy (R&WS) and Circular Economy Package (CEP) objectives.

New legislation will require separate collections for textiles by 2025, however the charity says existing markets for recycled textiles are small scale and traditional, with little innovation or growth potential.

WRAP is offering the grants to address the need for increased capacity, sorting, handling, and reprocessing textiles from municipal sources. It wants to help find new processes and markets, to avoid separately collected items simply being discarded.

The charity also says that the textiles recycling sector expects export markets to diminish over time as other countries increase their exports of used textiles.

WRAP director Peter Maddox said: “We’re looking for really imaginative solutions to the barriers to textile recycling and re-use, such as new technologies, interventions or equipment that hasn’t been tried and tested before.

"We have had a tremendous response to previous Resource Action Fund grant funding offers, and I confidently expect a similar level of quality applications for this offer.”

Environment Minister Rebecca Pow commented: “Fast fashion is having a real impact on our environment. With more than 300,000 tonnes of clothing being sent to landfill or incineration every year, it’s important that we find ways to make the textiles sector more sustainable and environmentally friendly. I look forward to seeing the innovative solutions that are awarded funding under this new grant scheme.”

Interested applicants can find more information and download an application by following this link. Completed application forms must be sent to [email protected] by Thursday 18 June 2020.

Source: EcoTextile News