Funding to the tune of £185,000 has been awarded to six recycling organisations to boost the reuse and recycling of clothing and other textiles in the capital.
Projects which will benefit from the cash injection announced today by the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) include the introduction of carpet recycling at local household waste and recycling sites and an innovative kerbside collection service which allows clothing to be recycled alongside other recyclable goods in wheeled bins or boxes.
It is anticipated that these six projects will divert in the region of 3,500 tonnes of end of life clothing and other textiles from landfill or incineration over the next 12 months.
The funding is part of LWARB’s ‘Textile Reuse and Recycling Fund’ which aims to create solutions to increase the re-use and recycling of textiles such as clothing, carpets and mattresses in London.
LWARB Efficiencies Committee Chair and Board Member, Clyde Loakes, said: “Around 200,000 tonnes of textiles currently go to landfill in London every year and the projects funded so far will help provide new and innovative solutions to reduce that amount. As well as reducing the burden on the capital’s landfill sites, increasing textile reuse and recycling will also help to grow London’s economy by creating jobs and volunteering/training opportunities and have a positive monetary impact on the public purse.”
LWARB launched the Textile Reuse and Recycling Fund for members of the London Textile Forum last year. So far six projects have been funded in total with each project awarded grants from £8,300 to £55,000. A further £215,000 is still available with a deadline for expressions of interest of 7 March 2014.
LWARB has awarded grant funding to the following organisations:
WRAP – Behaviour change communications for clothing and non-clothing. The project will employ a London resource to coordinate communications on textiles across stakeholders in London and ensure that the national Love Your Clothes messaging around helping people think about the way they buy, use and discard their clothes is utilised.
Lawrence M Barry (textile collector and re-processor) – Provision of a kerbside clothing recycling service for some London residents which allows clothing to be recycled alongside other recyclable goods in wheeled bins or boxes.
Wastebuster (community interest company running environmental education programmes) – Corporate textile recycling and rewards scheme. Engaging and working with businesses to develop a volunteer programme for delivery of textiles education in schools to increase recycling and encourage behaviour change.
Textile Recycling Association (trade association) - Evaluation of clothing theft from bring sites and kerbside and bogus charity collections in London. The project will evaluate the scale of theft of clothing from bring banks and kerbsides across London and the impact of bogus charity collections. It will be the first time in the UK that a project has been carried out to assess this problem. The project will identify measures that textile collectors in London could take to minimise their losses and maximise collection rates.
Carpet Recycling UK (trade association) - Recycling carpets from London HWRCs and bulky waste collections. The project will work with some key local authority partners to explore and develop carpet recycling from household waste recycling centres.
London Community Resource Network (social enterprise charity) - Increasing carpet tile re-use in London. The project will work with local social enterprises to establish a carpet tile reuse operation in London.
