SATCoL (the trading arm of The Salvation Army) is delighted to announce the launch of their new automated, advanced Fibersort clothing and textiles by fibre type, blend and colour for recycling back into the circular textiles supply chain.
Fibersort is a textiles revolution. The automated Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) reprocesses clothing and other items no longer in a condition that can be reused. The innovative approach identifies and classifies non-wearable textile items into grades. It uses an infra-red 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, Fibersort recognises the fibre content percentage of each item and sorts specified blends such as polycotton and wool mixes at a higher level of accuracy than manual sorting.
Fibersort also sorts fibres by specific or mixed colours categories.
This fashion forward technology closes the loop for fibre-to-fibre circular textiles. With the ground-breaking technology and environmental credentials of the Fibresort project supported by the Government’s Resource Action Fund, managed by climate action NGO WRAP.
SATCoL is the largest charity-owned textiles collector in the UK working to support organisations reduce their carbon footprint. Fibersort, maximises the potential of charitable textile donations by creating more opportunities for garments to be repurposed and diverted from landfill in an effort to reduce the environmental impact of textiles.
The profits received from the resale of the donations is given to The Salvation Army to support the great work they do throughout the country.
Kirk Bradley, SATCoL’s Head of Corporate Partnerships, said: “We are thrilled to be working with this new ground-breaking technology.
“It helps to reduce waste and more donated garments can be repurposed, resold and raise more money for vital charity work.”
Claire Shrewsbury, Director of Insights and Innovation, WRAP, said: “Donations of unwanted clothing are essential to keep the cycle of clothing turning and move us towards a more sustainable model of clothing.
“WRAP is delighted to have been involved in the funding of this brilliant development. By working with retail partners to providing raw materials from the Fibersort process for recycling, SATCoL is helping to ‘close the loop’ at a key stage in the circle economy.”
To learn more about SATCoL and the work we do visit www.satcol.org
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