As the UK’s leading safety products and services company, Arco has committed seed funding to partner with start-up company Stuff4Life to support the research and development of a closed-loop, circular economy solution for polyester workwear. The funding will enable Stuff4Life to commission a chemical recycling demonstration plant in collaboration with Teesside University, bringing its academic experts, world-leading research capabilities, and state-of-the-art facilities onboard.
The plant will recover the base compound terephthalic acid (TPA), used in producing 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 analyzed, including the TPA quality. If the initiative is successful, Arco and Stuff4Life will be able to support a circular economy for workwear. This would see the TPA created through the chemical recycling activity sold back into the virgin polyester manufacturing, with volumes externally audited and validated.
Successfully recycling polyester and establishing an onshore UK supply chain would reduce the industry’s dependency on fossil fuels and find value in waste. It will also significantly reduce pollution from the manufacturing process as recycled polyester uses 59% less energy than virgin polyester. If successful, this will significantly help tackle the world’s climate crisis.
David Evison, Managing Director at Arco, said, “As a fifth-generation family business, Arco has always put corporate and social responsibility at the organization’s heart. 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.”
Nearly 90% of the 33 million workwear garments supplied annually end up in landfills or are incinerated. Many of these items are made from polyester, a plastic-based fabric and industry staple that uses an estimated 342 million barrels of oil every year.
Therefore, such efforts by Arcos are highly appreciated, and other companies should also start to look for sustainable solutions to save the planet for such noble cause.
