UK Promotes Textile Recycling In The UK

The British government has announced a $4 million 700 thousand (US $5 million 950 thousand) fund to help promote recycling and recycling of plastic packaging and textiles - and is seeking innovative ideas.

The multi million pound plan provides a subsidy of 200 thousand to 1 million pounds, which is mainly used to promote the recovery and reuse of textiles at the end of the use cycle. At the same time, it is also looking for solutions for plastic packaging that are difficult to recycle, such as plastic pallets, cans, plastic films and small packaging bags.

For textiles, this may include the technology of mechanical recovery, dismantling or categorization of textiles, automatic procedures for removing textile accessories, such as zippers, and technologies for classifying textiles according to fiber types and colors.

In 2015, 300 thousand tons of clothing were buried or burned in the United Kingdom - the government said that textiles were an important area of priority action because manufacturers were required to shoulder greater responsibilities to make their products easier to reuse (Reuse) and recycle (Recycle).

"We are committed to reducing, reusing, recycling and reducing waste further and faster," said environment minister Th r r se. "Valuable waste generated in landfill is environmentally or economically meaningless. We are making progress, but there is still more work to do. I encourage organizations to apply for our multi million pound grant to promote the recycling of these valuable materials. "

The government has announced more extensive plastic restriction measures, including raising the charges for plastic bags, and prohibiting the use of plastic straws, beverage mixers and plastic cotton bars since April 2020, and prohibiting the use of ultra-fine beads.

Earlier this year, a "plastic packaging tax" was consulted, which levies plastic packaging from less than 30% recycled materials in April 2022 to reduce the use of virgin plastics and encourage more sustainable packaging.

The subsidy will be managed by the waste and resource action plan (WRAP). The plan points out that the signatories of the sustainable fashion action plan (SCAP) from 2012 to 2017 made the following achievements: "clothing discarding has been reduced by 14%, the carbon emissions per ton of clothing have dropped by more than 11%, and the water consumption has dropped by more than 17%."

The European Clothing Action Plan, led by WRAP, aims to transfer more than 90 thousand tonnes of clothing waste from the entire European landfill and incineration waste area to other uses by December 2019.