The Salvation Army Trading Company (SATCoL) aims to revolutionise and close the loop for the fashion industry with its Fibresort technology.
As the trading arm of The Salvation Army, it has launched this automated, advanced Fibresort system with the aim of closing the loop for the fashion industry.
The innovation enables accurate sorting and grading of non-wearable clothing and textiles by fibre type, blend, and colour to aid the process of recycling back into a circular textiles supply chain.
Fibresort has been part funded by WRAP’s Resource Action Fund. Kirk Bradley, head of corporate partnerships, said: “This is an active and live project where we are sharing findings with DEFRA and WRAP.
“We are thrilled to be working with this new groundbreaking technology. It helps to reduce waste, and more donated garments can be repurposed, resold, and raise more money for vital charity work.”
What is Fibresort?
The Materials Recovery Facility is able to reprocess clothing and other items no longer in a condition that can be reused.
The technology enables users to identify and classify non-wearable textile items into grades. It uses an infrared camera and blows items from a conveyor belt into bins using air jets. The process separates them into fibres such as cotton, polyester, and wool.
Simultaneously, Fibresort recognises the fibre content percentage of each item, sorts specified blends such as polycotton and wool mixes at a higher level of accuracy than manual sorting, in addition to this specific or mixed colours categories.
SATCoL and the retail industry
SATCoL is the largest charity-owned textiles collector in the UK working with organisations such as retailers to support their carbon footprint reduction efforts. In 2022, it established a partnership with John Lewis to collect and sort clothing donated by the department store chain’s customers as part of the retailer’s FashionCycle initiative.
Fibresort maximises the potential of charitable textile donations by creating more opportunities for garments to be repurposed and diverted from going to disposal or landfill.
The profit received from the resale of clothing donations is given to The Salvation Army to support the charitable work it does across the UK.
To learn more about SATCoL and the work they do, visit its official website
Follow SATCoL @reuse2repurpose on social media
This is a sponsored article, paid for by SATCoL
[Image credits: The Salvation Army Trading Company]
