Reverse Resources platform to facilitate textile-to-textile recycling

The Reverse Resources platform is launching for collectors, sorters, and pre-processors to facilitate textile-to-textile recycling, with support from Accelerating Circularity, Fashion for Good, Global Fashion Agenda‘s Circular Fashion Partnership, Reverse Resources, SMART, and WRAP.

The Reverse Resources platform, in particular, is intended to build the infrastructure required for the recycling of post-consumer textile waste. It can now store data about collectors, sorters, pre-processors, locations, services, and volumes. The tool is intended to provide open access, allowing actors in the circular system to find needed services.

Reverse Resource’s initial digital platform is believed to have achieved substantial progress in the post-industrial textile waste business, connecting recyclers with manufacturer information to promote transparency of post-industrial material availability, leading to better circularity. The expanded digital platform will provide all industry actors with information on the availability and accessibility of post-consumer materials.

Ann Runnel, founder and CEO of Reverse Resources, said that Reverse Resources is a textile and post-consumer waste tracking and trading platform that provides 360-degree transparency of waste flows. They match supply and demand, break down market barriers, and shorten supply chains, all while boosting value. Their objective is to help reduce the cost of recycling in order to support the growth of the circular economy. The more industry participants who participate, the greater economies of scale they may achieve.”

Over the last two years, Global Fashion Agenda has collaborated closely with Reverse Resources to build a platform for post-industrial textile waste by bringing together global brands, Bangladeshi producers, and recyclers. According to Federica Marchionni, CEO of Global Fashion Agenda, enhancing transparency and traceability of waste feedstocks and matching waste categories to recycling solutions is a crucial unlock to circular fashion systems.

Karla Magruder, founder and president of Accelerating Circularity, said that this is one of several open-sourced digital tools they expect to see in the market that will allow the sector to move forward on its circularity ambitions. The industry requires the information that will be housed in the platform, which will detail what services and materials are available for post-consumer textiles available for textile-to-textile recycling.

The platform is being tested with a group of big collectors, sorters, and pre-processors from the Accelerating Circularity Project Europe, the Global Fashion Agenda’s Circular Fashion Partnership in Bangladesh, and Fashion for Good’s Sorting for Circularity India Project. The platform’s ultimate purpose is to enable the more effective and cost-effective recycling of post-consumer trash that is now disposed of in landfills.

Katrin Ley, manager director of Fashion for Good, added that in order to attain circularity, they must collaborate to establish creative business models that necessitate new digital systems, infrastructure, and collaborations. They’re all working toward the same goal of driving progress, so collaborating to accomplish it through collaborative technology platforms makes sense.

Cat Salvidge, sustainable textiles sector specialist at WRAP, added that WRAP is thrilled to support the development of this platform through its links with the UK textile reuse and recycling sector. Transparency will be created by digital platforms, allowing for a more circular textile business. Circularity is critical to WRAP’s new voluntary agreement for a more sustainable textiles sector, Textiles 2030, thus this collaboration is timely.