Public Funding for Fibre Lab Collective Ltd

The U.K. produces over 800,000 tons of pre-consumer and commercial textile waste every year, with the vast majority of it ending up in landfill or incinerator. We help businesses capitalise on this waste stream by turning it into a valuable raw material -- fibre. We do this through the use of a custom-built, small-scale shredding machine that is located locally in our east London studio. We aim to develop a localised supply chain for the remanufacturing of commercial and pre-consumer textile waste, with each stage of the process taking place entirely within the U.K. We will recycle cellulose based textile waste (I.e., cotton) into a fibre-based alternative to papers and packaging and will recirculate the products within the same businesses that initially produced the waste stream. For example, a garment manufacture can have its pre-consumer textile waste recycled into labelling for use on finished garments. What makes our project innovate is that the entire supply chain -- from waste collection, to fibre, to remanufacturing will all take place exclusively within the U.K. Therefore, establishing a new, localised supply chain and bringing recycled, fibre-based packaging to market. Paper-like materials made from textile waste has been proven, however, it does not currently exist within a localised supply chain, as we are proposing, or within the B2B sector. Our innovation is different to current offerings because we are developing fibre-based products and materials that can be of valuable use to the same businesses who are producing the waste stream. Our key objectives for this project include reducing environmental impact by diverting the amount of commercial textile waste sent to landfill and incinerator; establishing a localised circular economy through the creation of new products and materials; and creating new revenue streams to scale our business's impact and ultimately achieve our goal of eliminating pre-consumer and commercial textile waste from reaching landfill.