London-headquartered Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems has acquired a single line sorter from Denmark’s NewRetex, part funded by the Automatic-Sorting for Circularity and Textiles (ACT UK) project, supported by Innovate UK.

ACT UK provided support and industry collaboration to design a 25,000-ton per annum automated textile sorting and pre-processing plant (ATSP), which, as the largest grant recipient from the project, Circle-8 is driving forward beyond the project.

The UK generates more than 700,000 tons of non-reusable textiles every year and currently recycles less than 1% of it.

Circle-8 aims to build a network of ATSPs designed to turn non-reusable textiles into feedstock for high volume textile recyclers, along with establishing key partnerships to drive the shift to fibre-to-fibre recycling. The NewRetex single line sorter will be the first stand-alone component contributing to the 25,000 ton per year capacity, setting the standard for future developments.

“We are extremely impressed by the approach NewRetex has taken with the development of this automated textiles sorting line,” said Cyndi Rhoades, co-founder and CEO of Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems. “It will enable a significant advance in the transition from manual to automated sorting of non-reusable textiles, laying the groundwork to support the scale up of fibre-to-fibre recycling plants for textiles and other recycling processes in the UK.”

The NewRetex sorting line will enable high-capacity sorting and accurate classification of textiles according to material composition, colour and the presence of hard parts such as buttons and zippers

Specialised software will collect data including weight and fibre composition for each piece. This data will enable tracking materials from pre-sorters through the ATSP and on to recyclers and eventually, with Digital Product Passports.

“We are delighted to be working with C-8 to expand our sorting and traceability technologies beyond Denmark,” said Rikke Bech, CEO of NewRetex. “We see big potential in C-8 and its plans for the UK, and we are excited to be part of scaling textile sorting for recycling in Europe.”

www.circle8ecosystems.co.uk

www.newretex.com