James Cropper, the global market leader in advanced materials and paper products, announce that it is now possible to recover and use cotton fibres from the UK’s polycotton waste stream and transform them into paper.
As the fourth largest producer of textile waste in Europe, the UK generates over 200,000 tonnes of textile waste annually, with a mere 10% being recycled and up until now, only pure cotton has been able to be used in papermaking.
In response, a revolutionary process was devised -with a published patent.
The successful pilot project, funded by Innovate UK, saw polycotton waste sourced from the UK’s commercial laundries. With bed sheets currently only used 10 times before being incinerated, the hotel industry has been searching for a sustainable solution, making them the perfect partner.
Joanne Storey, R&D Programme Lead at James Cropper and one of the inventors of the process said, “At James Cropper we love a challenge and providing a sustainable solution to the waste generated by the UK textile industry was just that.”
Upon completion of this project, the intention is to scale the process, identify collaborators and evaluate wider industry implementation.
Storey adds, ““Low-value waste materials such as hotel bed sheets can now become valuable, recyclable paper-making fibres. And our ambitions don’t stop there. We want to explore how this regeneration technology could transform supply chains of a range of industries.”
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