The rival retailers are coming together and working with Oxfam and Circle-8 on an initiative called The Circuit, which aims to streamline and process waste, and transform it into new raw materials.
GREEN MACHINES: Britain’s high street retailers — and supermarkets — are usually rivals, but they’re coming together for the sake of the environment, and with the aim of reducing and repurposing textile waste in the clothing industry.
New Look, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s are teaming with Oxfam on a new collaboration with Circle-8 to launch The Circuit, an initiative designed to help tackle the U.K.’s growing piles of textile waste.
According to Circle-8, a U.K.-based company that builds infrastructure for automated textile sorting and chemical recycling, around 1.4 million tons of post-consumer textiles were generated in the U.K. in 2024, with nearly half estimated to be non-reusable.
The company said it’s building The Circuit to bring together retailers, textile recovery partners, recyclers and manufacturers to develop the infrastructure and commercial model to turn more of end-of-use textiles into new raw materials.
The first phase will launch in January 2027 at Oxfam’s site in Batley, Yorkshire. The partners will test automated textile sorting, traceability and routes into fiber-to-fiber recycling.
Cyndi Rhoades, cofounder and chief executive officer of Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems, said: “The retailers who help build circular textile value chains today will be best positioned to influence and benefit from them tomorrow. Through The Circuit, we’re powering the relationships, infrastructure and commercial frameworks needed to make that possible.
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