With grants of between £20,000 and £170,000 available to organisations of any size, whether commercial or not-for-profit, the money comes from Defra’s £18m Resource Action Fund, set up to support priority policy areas, which includes textiles.
Peter Maddox, director of WRAP UK, 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.”
The money available is for capital expenditure only, meaning it is to go towards equipment or technology that enables recycling or re-use of clothing or waste linen textiles.
Each project that applies requires match funding from other sources, comprising 10% from not-for-profit and 50% from commercial organisations.
To be successful applicants will need to demonstrate “innovation beyond normal practice” and will be assessed against a variety of criteria.
Textiles
In December 2019 WRAP released a report “exploring the achievements” of the European Clothing Action Plan, an EU-funded project aiming to reduce clothing waste across the continent (see letsrecycle.com story). However, the overall tonnage of textiles diverted from landfill or incineration during the four-year project appeared to have fallen short of the initial target of 90,000 tonnes a year. The final report put the overall tonnage diverted during the course of the project at 4,670 tonnes (1,168 per year).
“Fast fashion is having a real impact on our environment”
Separate collections of textiles are required by 2025, and, to meet this target, processes and markets need to be found to avoid items being discarded, WRAP says.
The charity says the aim of the grant fund is to address the need for increased capacity, sorting, handling, and reprocessing textiles from municipal sources.
Environment minister Rebecca Pow said: “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.”
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