The waste management and recycling company MYGroup will spend £500,000 on a new sustainable textile factory at its current location in Hull, a project it describes as a “UK-first.”
The city’s Morley Street recycling campus is home to a two-story, 1,300-square-meter factory that will house a full recycling and remanufacturing process for waste textiles, including clothing, accessories, and home furnishings. The factory is being built inside a defunct former laboratory and offices.
Before going through a deconstruction process to remove hardware, like as zippers and buttons, and separate multi-materials, the goods will first enter a sorting and grading area.
The dedicated ReFactory team at MYGroup will work in a pattern-cutting and design studio as well as an industrial-grade machine production floor to repurpose the textiles after they have been cleaned and reduced to their raw ingredients.
The location will employ a multi-disciplinary team that includes designers, pattern cutters, sewing machine operators, and sales and administrative support employees, and will result in the creation of up to 30 jobs.
MYGroup’s Katie Robinson, the company’s textiles manager, stated that the company planned to divert a sizable part of textile waste from landfills and incineration by implementing an end-to-end recycling and remanufacturing process. “The landscape of the fashion and textiles industry is changing,” she declared. “The ‘take, make, and dispose’ linear model can no longer be maintained. The time for legislation requiring a more circular approach is rapidly coming, and we are noticing an increase in the number of the biggest companies in the sector collaborating with us on textile waste recycling.
This fall, the sewing floor, pattern-cutting studio, and storage will be finished as part of the factory’s first phase. Additional phases will include offices, a training center, and rooms for sorting, grading, and washing.
The plant is expected to be fully operational by the spring of 2024 after receiving an additional investment of £400,000.
Sustainability will also be a priority during site construction. The company will make use of its own MYboard, a product made exclusively from recycled plastic at its Hull facility that has a consistency akin to plywood. Interior walls will be made of MYboard, along with other eco-friendly design features including sensor lighting in high-traffic areas and water-saving toilets.
“We are proud to launch this innovative project that demonstrates the company and the city of Hull’s commitment to sustainability and innovation,” said Steve Carrie, director of MYGroup. Our end-to-end recycling process and remanufacturing capabilities will revolutionize the way our industry thinks about textile waste. We are ahead of the curve and developing a factory of the future.
