Evaluating + revaluing textile waste.
Fashion District and the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s Green Business Network have collaborated for another event in the Becoming Circular: Revaluing Waste series of networking and roundtable evenings, hosted in March 2023 at the Hackney Brewery in Walthamstow.
Designed to incite collective action and provide attendees with the tools to embed circularity in their businesses, this second event focused on three key approaches to eliminating waste textiles: repair, resale and redistribution. Bringing together two case studies, along with roundtable hosts from across the three approaches, it was yet another occasion of in-depth chat and knowledge exchange.
This article gives you some of the key takeaways, along with personal thoughts on how to evaluate and revalue textile waste.
Images: 1-2. We were delightfully served copious amounts of Yard Sale Pizza and a drink from the Hackney Brewey (I went for rhubarb cider); 3-4. Too busy chatting so was relegated to the back of the room, and this was my view of the presentation screen (brewery on view to the left).
Fashion District is a hub in East London that encompasses Poplar Works, The Trampery Fish Island Village, Leyton Green Studios, Fashion Enter’s Tailoring Academy and London College of Fashion, all of which are bringing manufacturing, businesses and fashion innovation to this area - yet will boost the economy across the whole capital, and support made-in-Britain across various sectors. Not only that, these initiatives are helping to revive London’s fashion heritage and creating a lasting legacy for the future in uncertain times.
The Green Business Network exists to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with other businesses and potential clients or customers who want a green future for SMEs within the Waltham Forest borough (and those adjacent to it). The Network chooses the agenda, and in this case with Fashion District, they are supporting businesses to develop connections in and around the challenges with education, skills and infrastructure of London’s fashion industry — and beyond.
Following on from the success of the first session in the series, back in early November 2022, where new circular ideas for small businesses were discussed, this evening was tailored to consider some of those practical ideas that businesses and organisations (or indeed individuals) could utilise. Takeaways from the roundtable discussions between entrepreneurs and organisations looked to the importance of education, communication, communication, locality, providing services and engrained business responsibility.
So with those in mind, we heard from two guest speakers: Sarah Robins of WRAP UK and Layla Sargent of The Seam.
WRAP UK: Textiles 2030.
Sarah Robins is the Associate Sector Specialist at WRAP UK — a climate action NGO working around the globe to tackle the causes of the climate crisis arising from the fashion industry, food industry and plastics industry (all of which are somewhat interconnected).
Textiles 2030 is an initiative harnessing the knowledge and expertise of UK leaders in sustainability to accelerate the UK fashion and textiles industry towards a circular economy. The voluntary agreement builds on the learning and success of the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP 2020) and aims to engage the majority of UK fashion and textiles organisations in collaborative climate action, particularly regarding challenges of carbon, water and circular textile targets.
Textiles 2030 has three targets to achieve over 10 years (by 2030):
• Cutting carbon emissions of the full lifecycle of textiles by 50% by 2030
• Reducing the water footprint of new products sold by 30% by 2030
• Creating a circular textiles roadmap for the UK
Images: 1-2. Why is Textiles 2030 needed? Annual Progress Report 2021/22 screenshots showing statistics around textile waste. Download the report here.
Partner signatories will use the 2030 Roadmap, working together to achieve the following:
Design for Circularity: agree good practice design principles, including durability, recyclability, use of recycled content and minimising waste, and implement them as appropriate to their business model and customer base, to lower the impacts of products placed on market in the UK
Implement Circular Business Models: pilot reuse business models as appropriate to their product ranges, share learning, and develop large-scale implementation to extend the lifetime of clothing in the UK – and decouple business growth from the use of virgin resources
Close the Loop on Materials: set up partnerships to supply and use recycled fibres for new products, accelerating the commercialisation of fibre-to-fibre recycling in the UK.
Sarah took us through some findings from the ‘Citizen Insights: Clothing Longevity and Circular Business Models receptivity in the UK’ report published in October 2022 but researched in September-November 2021, to help attending businesses to understand the potential for circular business models in the eyes of consumers. Key findings include:
Compared to research conducted in 2013, the predicted length of time UK citizens are keeping a range of clothing items has increased.
When we buy preloved and second-hand vintage, we tend to keep these items longer than those we purchase new - nearly a year and a half longer at 5.4 years for vintage and preloved clothes, compared to 4 years for off the peg. While repairing clothing was found to extend an item's lifespan by a further 1.3 years.
Despite this, almost 23% of people in the UK say they regularly buy clothing with the intention of using it for a short amount of time.
I’d made a note that I hadn’t spotted any particular demographics in the slides, but fortunately upon reading the report at home found that it is detailed, particularly in respect of purchasing behaviours. I still find these reports too quantitative though, which is of course necessary for shareholders and stakeholders, yet doesn’t realistically describe, for instance, why we’re keeping preloved items for longer than those than we purchase new.
Alongside this report, in her keynote talk Sarah provided insight from the Textiles 2030 6 month progress report to indicate where the 120 partner signatories were in their efforts to cut carbon, reduce water, and eliminate waste (or rather, build circular models). Modelling is used to establish where reductions could realistically come from, for instance with carbon, this includes a shift in electricity origin and implementation of more recycled fibres. The Footprint Calculator is accessible by companies to help them establish their own carbon, water and materials spending.
Images: 1-2. Screenshots from the Textiles 2030 six-month progress report indicating models of carbon and water footprint reduction measures. Download the report here.
The drivers for business action are clear; citizens recognise there is a climate emergency and that they need to make lifestyle choices to prevent it. Research shows that citizen concern for the environment has increased through the pandemic, and shoppers now favour brands with a strong story on sustainability. ~ Textiles 2030 six-month progress report, page 4.
WRAP are also producing a “how to get started” guide for fashion businesses wanting to implement circular strategies — if it’s not different from the already existing guide to circularity for fashion and textiles businesses from 2021, which has a handy one hour webinar.
The Seam: Cultivating care culture.
Layla Sargent, Founder and CEO, and Bronwyn Seier, Head of Brand at The Seam were next up, to present their game-changing repair and alterations app (SaaS maybe?) and give insight into how it has shifted over the past few years since its inception. The app now matches the items you need repairing/altering with a maker on their roster, to establish “a conscious and connected world where people care for their garments, rather than consume them”.
I had hosted Layla as a guest speaker, almost at the beginning of The Seam, during a networking evening for The Sustainable Fashion Collective where we were discussing circular business models [this is part of the presentation, but it’s behind a paywall]. I’d even applied as a maker on the platform, but realised it wasn’t the right time for me to have that type of freelance work — and now they have a waiting list of around 2000 makers wanting to get on to sell their services and be part of the system shift.
Layla started the presentation with an explanation - though that’s not quite the right word, perhaps more like story - of how we got to this amount of waste, including pinpointing the Multi Fibre Agreement as a turning point in our consumption (when developed countries were allowed to adjust imports of textiles and garments from the developing world).
“Since the 1970s, textile waste has increased by 800%, and in the UK alone, 30 million items of clothing are sent to landfill every week. The Seam’s main mission is to reduce the number of garments that end up in landfill by helping people to extend the lifecycle of their garments.” ~ Layla Sargent.
Last year The Seam’s roster of specialist makers completed their 10,000th repair, and now they are working with the likes of luxury multi-brand retailer NET-A-PORTER to incorporate this aftercare model into their customer offering. Not only does this improve the visible of repairs and alterations, but will also increase the availability of work for those skilled freelance makers.
There was a lovely slide showing the speculative lifecycle of a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans using an aftercare service such as The Seam’s. Bought December 2022 (£96) > Tailored February 2023 (£18) > Zip replacement December 2024 (£21) / Saved 18.6kg CO2e >Resold May 2025 (£60).
Images: 1. Layla Sargent, Founder and CEO of The Seam presents her business and the story of why it’s important; 2. Speculative lifecycle of a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans using The Seam’s aftercare service. [Credit: Fashion District, because my photos were awful from the back]
It was unfortunately very difficult to hear from the back of the room, especially at the person next to me decided to have a chat the whole way through with their friend. Why come to a networking or panel discussion of this sort if you’re not actually going to engage and be present? So I consequently missed most of the questions put to both speakers, but was able to hear one regarding the challenges observed by The Seam.
One of these challenges heeded the lost efficiency when using certain logistics such as the postal system — even with greener couriers, there is still the effort of a customer shipping an item to a maker, to be then shipped back. I do wonder if this slightly negates and disconnects the customer, though, do we have such tight relationships with dry cleaners and alteration shops anyway? There’s a lot of trust involved with repairs and alterations, and shipping is generally easier — but it isn’t necessarily cost effective. Would The Seam be able to have a pop-up space in a department store (to rival The Restory and Sojo who have provided services for Selfridges and Beyond Retro respectively).
I worked for jeans brand Blackhorse Lane Ateliers, and we would have consultations with the customer to address how they wanted their jeans altered. Sometimes it was a simple hemming using an industrial machine, but other times it was more involved tailoring that would see the garment sent to our factory for altering. It was a fairly personal experience, and often intimate in a sense, as we were getting to know the customer through how they wore their clothing and wanted it changing. The shop environment made these changes possible, as often over email or phone there would be nuances lost in translation.
Another question I was able to gather was towards Sarah regarding getting partners on board with the Textiles 2030 programme. How can you convert people who are not yet aware that there is an issue? And even if a brand signed up, if the customers themselves weren’t registering the issue, then would the signing be meaningless? It’s back to this double-edged sword of what comes first, yet if you don’t try one way, then how will you know.
Layla’s key takeaway — that works for so many businesses — is a need for connectivity. They want to promote the idea that caring for garments can be more thrilling than the feeling you get when buying something new, and that data can be highlighted to motivate brands to incorporate these actions into their business models.
Roundtable discussions.
Being relegated to the back of the room at the beginning of the evening meant that I didn’t have a table host where I was sitting, and not wanting to push onto a table without seats to sit on the outside, I had started by chatting with a couple of guys on my existing table before being recommended to move. Unfortunately it did mean that, as I imagined would happen, I was on the outskirts, and the space was incredibly noisy with the brewery brewing and other people chatting (including one pair who stood in between the table discussions chatting — this time I did make a point of it). It meant that I didn’t feel involved in the tables try as I might, and it was too much hard work to strain to listen. Plus, the first table I was on, not much of a brainstorm was occuring, and rather the table host spending all the time extolling the virtues of only their project. Felt it wasn’t the collective discussion I wanted and moved on.
I’ll give you an overview of what was covered, mostly by taking insights from Fashion District’s lovely document of takeaways (provided to attendees) and their blog post but bullet pointed for easier reading.
There were three roundtable discussion options — redisribution, resale and repair — chaired by sixteen local business founders and entrepreneurs, with the aim of brainstorming what actions could be taken by Waltham Forest to encourage businesses to repair and resell garments/products and redistribute textile waste. Afterwards, as with the event in November, groups fed back their thoughts to the rest of the room — by which point I’d already disappeared.
Repair.
Table one — The Seam’s Layla Sargent, and accessory designer/mending expert, Mika Sembongi:
Providing pricing guidelines for repair services, as sometimes independent services find it difficult to price and having a guideline as a baseline could give confidence to pricing decisions.
Holding a further session in the area about how to price work and the best way to brand and market services.
Table two — Tessa Solomons, a reuse and repair consultant:
The importance of higher education in teaching sustainability in fashion and ways to extend the lifecycle of a garment.
Suggested that retailers form a dialogue with designers and manufacturers to understand whether their products can be repaired in the future, allowing them to make informed purchasing decisions and to better educate their customers.
Building a campaign that encourages people to learn basic sewing and mending skills.
Images: attendees of Fashion District's/Green Business Network event at the Hackney Brewery & Taproom participating in the roundtable discussions on repair and resale. [Credit: Fashion District]
Resale.
Table one — Louise Weiss from dotte and Nicola Joseph of Uniform Choice:
Visibility, accessibility and attitudes towards second-hand clothing. The messaging behind buying second-hand garments needs to be inclusive and considerate of the motivation behind these purchases, as different connotations of ‘second-hand’ come with different budget availability.
Table two — Jessica Brunt from Verte London and Judith Agwada of Maison Archives:
Destigmatising second-hand shopping was important. They suggested working with the London Borough of Waltham Forest to enable vacant retail spaces on the high street to be used for sustainable businesses.
Businesses could benefit from holding in-store experiences, whilst making sustainable practice more accessible to the public.
Enabling free local collections for clothing clearouts.
More education about what people can do to repurpose items.
Redistribution.
Table one — Piarvé Wetshi from Last Yarn / Colèchi and Gosia Rokicka from Forest Recycling Project:
More visibility on the process of what happens to clothes when we recycle through charity shops and highlight the process of what happens to clothes that don’t sell.
Some trust has been lost for charity shops with prices increasing and charity shops cherry-picking products to sell on other platforms at market rate.
Table two — Kaela Katz of FibreLab, Samson Soboye and Sophie Rochester from Yodomo:
Incentivising businesses to redistribute pre-consumer textile waste.
Encouraging businesses to sort at source, i.e. separating by fibre composition, could change the redistribution of fabric massively, as would having multiple dropoff/collection points for textile waste, like swap shops, in the area.
As part of a consumer education campaign, the group came up with the idea of creating an installation of textile waste, to spotlight the issue before offering creative experiences that show sustainable solutions for where the waste could go.
Table three — Sol Escobar, Founder of Give Your Best and Anita Earp from Forest Recycling Project:
Importance of raising awareness in the millennial and Gen-Z markets and connecting with younger audiences about sustainable initiatives through social media, events, fashion weeks, universities and festivals.
Importance of inclusion when discussing circularity, as 5.5 million people in the UK are living in clothing poverty and are unable to access second-hand selling platforms or be part of the fashion conversation.
Images: attendees of Fashion District's/Green Business Network event at the Hackney Brewery & Taproom participating in the roundtable discussions on resale and redistribution. I’m there in that third photo. [Credit: Fashion District]
Sign up to Fashion District’s newsletter for news of other events like these. I still need to catch up with a write up of the first event, which was a much quieter and intimate space, so I did have a good time.
To learn about other stuff regarding textile waste, see these other blog posts:
The Festival of Natural Fibres
The compostability of textiles
Rethinking waste (food and materials)