Safety giant Arco is providing seed funding for a start-up firm looking to recycle tough workwear.
Stuff4Life is being backed by the Hull firm, supporting research and development of a closed-loop circular economy solution for polyester materials.
The £390 million fifth-generation company has found that almost 90 per cent of the 33 million workwear garments supplied annually are either landfilled or incinerated - with many made from the “industry staple” plastic-based fabric.
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In collaboration with Teesside University, a chemical recycling demonstration plant is to be brought forward, with Stuff4Life based at Launchpad, on the campus’ £5.6 million University Enterprise Zone in Middlesbrough.
Arco managing director David Evison said: “As a fifth-generation family business, Arco has always put corporate and social responsibility at the heart of the organisation. Our involvement with Stuff4Life and Teesside University is an opportunity to make a real difference to the environmental and social impacts of workwear and to use our scale and product development capabilities to drive an effective circular economy, supporting local regeneration and ensuring we protect more people and the planet.”
With a limited product lifetime and little to no infrastructure for recycling and manufacturing in the UK, workwear has a high social and environmental impact.
The plant will recover the base compound terephthalic acid (TPA), used in the production of polyester fabric, from recycled workwear. The recovered TPA will then be reincorporated into various manufacturing processes, with the goal being to manufacture new polyester to deliver a “PPE for Life” opportunity in the UK.
As part of the trial phase, Arco and Stuff4Life will collect, shred, and transport up to six tonnes of end-of-line polyester, and polyester mix, garments. The garments will then be recycled using chemical processes. Several batches of garments with different levels of polyester content will be put through the process and the results analysed, including the TPA quality.
If the initiative is successful, TPA created through the chemical recycling activity will be sold back into the virgin polyester manufacturing process, with volumes externally audited and validated.
John Twitchen, co-founding director of Stuff4Life, said: “The humble hi-vis is an essential item for everyone working in hazardous environments, from mending roads and collecting bins to saving people at sea or up mountains. The impact of polyester as a linear make-use-dispose garment is significant, but by recycling it those impacts can be substantially reduced whilst keeping all the performance benefits from using synthetic fibres. We’re excited to be working on such an important project with the country’s leading safety company.”
A fellow of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, he is joined by Dr Miles Watkins in the business, a chartered environmentalist.
The aim is to reduce the industry’s dependency on fossil fuels and find value in waste. It could also significantly reduce pollution from the manufacturing process as recycled polyester uses 59 per cent less energy compared to virgin polyester.
Dr David Hughes, associate professor in Teesside University’s School of Computing, Engineering and Digital Technologies, said: “Polymers no doubt have a hugely important role in the future of energy, resources, food, health and infrastructure. However, we need to decouple from a use and dispose economy to a circular, sustainable one.
"This project builds on Teesside’s 20 years of experience in research into environmental and sustainable engineering technologies. We are hugely proud to be working with Stuff4life and Arco to make a real difference to the future of polymer sustainability.”
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