Circular Soundbites
Circular Soundbites is the place to hear from the people shaping what’s coming next within the many industries and sectors Reconomy reaches. We’ll be talking to key industry experts and insiders, offering up real, practical insight on everything connected to the circular economy.
In addition to standalone episodes, Circular Soundbites will also offer dedicated, multi-part series that explore the systems, decisions and day-to-day realities driving real circular progress.
Circular Soundbites
Thread Talks: Unlocking Value from Post-consumer Textiles
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In this episode of Thread Talks, part of the Circular Soundbites podcast from Reconomy, host Aimee Campanella (Development Director, Textiles EPR) sits down with Ross Barry, co-founder of resale platform Reskinned and Managing Director of LMB Textiles.
Ross shares LMB's story, from his grandfather's post-war move into the London rag trade through decades of UK textile recycling and export, to today's resale and take-back markets. The conversation covers LMB's workwear repair programme with the UK prison service, the textile repair skills gap, and a recent collaboration with Passenger turning old coats into patchwork blankets.
They also dig into Reskinned's brand take-back model, a recent eBay Live event with Marks & Spencer, plans to launch in Europe, and why building customer trust through visible repairs, resale and genuine take-back guarantees is becoming a real competitive advantage for fashion brands.
The episode closes on the recycling side: the shrinking UK shoddy mill industry, the rise of textile-to-textile chemical recycling, and why aggregating volume and collaborating across the industry, rather than competing, is essential to scaling circularity in fashion.
Topics covered: textile reuse and resale, workwear repair, brand take-back schemes, EPR and legislation, chemical recycling, and the future of circular fashion.
Welcome to Circular Soundbites, a Reconomy podcast that breaks down the ideas, systems, and decisions that are driving real change behind the circular economy. Circular sound bites, a reconomy podcast. I'm Amy Campanella, your host and development director for Textiles APR at Reconomy. And on today's episode of Thread Talks, we're looking at innovation within textile circularity, focusing in on repair, resale, as well as recycling. And I'm super excited to be joined by Ross Bemery today. Welcome, Ross. Ross is the co-founder of Resale Platform Reskind and the managing director for LMB Textiles. Thank you for being here today, Ross.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01I'd love to start with an origin story around LMB textiles. It was your grandfather, great-grandfather that started it?
SPEAKER_00Uh it was my grandfather, and he sort of wandered into the industry by accident. He came out of the RAF, was selling lorries. Um there's a company in, I think it was in Barkin in London that, you know, they were basically collecting all of the textile waste from the London docks. Um they were buying a lot of lorries, offered my granddad a job and he thought, well, they must be doing quite well. Um then the owner, Mr. Moore, retired. My granddad took it over and yeah, carried it on up until the 80s. Um my dad started working for him, mainly because my mum said you're not working in casinos anymore when he had she had me and my sister. So yeah, he'd left school at 15, didn't really have any qualifications. So he started driving a lorry for my granddad, and then when he retired, he sort of looked at the new industry, which at that point was the reuse market for Africa. So when my granddad was involved, it was very much about recycling, um, a lot of wool, a lot of hemp, you know, things were monofibres, and there was established routes for basically everything. Like sort of nothing went to waste.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's very, you know, different times. And this was sort of through the 60s, 70s, 80s. Um, that recycling industry was still there, still in the UK, based predominantly in Yorkshire, that area.
SPEAKER_01That's really interesting that there was so much recycling happening here in the UK. And then how did things progress to the export market?
SPEAKER_00Up until the 80s, people kind of bought their clothes and wore them for a very long time. He's always got this story that, oh my god, I could probably tell it in my sleep. Uncle Arthur got married when he was 18, 19, bought a suit, then he'd wear it to the odd christening, funeral, and kept it until he was sort of like worn out or he died in it. And if he didn't get buried in it, then it'd probably end up at charity shop where it would just get the rag and bone men would come and collect it, and where it was wool, it'd get repouled, go into shoddy. But people didn't have loads and loads of clothes, and then the 80s come and sort of fashion started being a lot more, you know, people change clothes for fashion, not because they'd worn out or what have you. And in the UK we've always had the charity sector, which they don't seem to have that sector so much in continental Europe. In the UK, it's very much, you know, every high street you've had charity shops, and the UK's it really had sort of very high reuse rates compared to Europe. And my dad noticed that, you know, a lot of the charity shops were getting more clothing than they really could sell. The links between the UK, Africa, and India and Bangladesh, places like that, were quite strong. So yeah, he started sort of just selling the clothes for reuse, and several other people did. At the time, there's probably about 10 or 15 in the country doing it.
SPEAKER_01Going back to Uncle Arthur real quick, so did he wear that suit until he passed? And if he did, what were his diet secrets? Because that's pretty amazing if he stayed the same size from 18 until the end.
SPEAKER_00It is quite amazing, and yeah, actually it was quite funny. So yesterday there was a talk, and you, you know, you can ask questions, and someone said, Have the clothing brands noticed the sort of Manjaro effect where people are buying smaller clothes? It's like that's gonna happen. And that's the thing I like about our industry, it's sort of especially with the sorting and grading, you see stuff come through and it's like, oh, where have all of these come from? Like when onesies first come out, it was sort of like I remember sort of somebody coming up to saying, What do we do with these? And it's like, well, I can't imagine too many people in export markets are gonna want them.
SPEAKER_01A Scooby-Doo onesie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Onesies and slankets.
SPEAKER_00Slank kits, yeah, they're a big one. Is but they're all polyester, aren't they? So there isn't a lot to do with them.
SPEAKER_01And then you got involved with your dad's business back in 2002.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, every Saturday my dad would take us to work and I used to do the boxing up of the wiping rags, or then I progressed to actually being allowed to go on the bailing press. And we had one in the floor, so you used to have to jump on it to get the clothes down, and then you'd repress it. Certainly wouldn't be allowed today with health and safety. Um, and then as soon as I could drive, I was out getting lost with an A to Z whilst eating a sandwich, sort of collecting from the charity shops and the textile banks.
SPEAKER_01And now you're running the show.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, scary, isn't it? Waiting for a grown-up to walk in and tell me what to do, but it hasn't happened yet.
SPEAKER_01So when you were out driving, were you driving like the big 18-ton trucks or just like the seven and a half toners?
SPEAKER_00Oh no, vans.
SPEAKER_01Vans.
SPEAKER_00I can't.
SPEAKER_01Three three ton, three-ton vans.
SPEAKER_00Three and a half ton van, yeah. Three and a half tonnes. Sprinters.
SPEAKER_01Sprinters.
SPEAKER_00Everyone had a sprinter. Yeah. Yeah. More reliable. A bit more expensive than the transit, but you know.
SPEAKER_01Were you driving in the city collecting from textile banks or southeast London or outside the city?
SPEAKER_00So we were predominantly London, the South East, so yeah, a lot around London um getting lost. And then, yes, I'd have to go out to Essex and Hertfordshire and going into the charity shops, you know. And it was amazing, you know. There you are carrying a hundred black sacks, usually from like a loft or a basement. They always seem to manage to put them somewhere really awkward, and then yeah, nobody get out of your way, so you had to walk them through the shop. Then if you was lucky, you park the van outside. If not, you're sort of half a mile up the road. And and the same with textile banks, you know, if you're standing empty in a textile bank, which is a horrible job, um, especially if it's raining and I always just hit my head on the chute. Um but the amount of people that come and stop and just, you know, inquire what you're doing, sort of, oh I didn't even, you know, people don't really ever think what happens to their old clothes. And the same, you know, the charity sector's always sort of battled with that slightly. You know, how do we explain to people not everything gets sold in store? And then the on story of it goes to a rag merchant and then it gets sorted, it gets graded, then it goes, you know, to another country. And most people don't, you know, wouldn't have ever been to Africa or India or that and don't really appreciate how lucky we are that we can just walk into a shop and buy clothing really easily. It's not, you know, having to get a bus and you know, it's weeks worth of wages.
SPEAKER_01And have you had an opportunity to visit any of the markets in Africa?
SPEAKER_00I have. Um, so from the age of ten, we used to go over to Kenya a lot. Um, our customers used to come and live with us because they got bored of staying in hotels. And then, yeah, yeah, we used to go and visit. My dad made a point of always going to visit the local markets and actually, you know, seeing what people were wearing, seeing what the fashion is, talking to the market stall holders. And he was always like, he always made sure that he came back with a new, a new angle, a new thing to do, a new grade. Because I think that's another thing people don't appreciate. There's, you know, within the industry, there's certain norms and ways of sorting, but every grader has their own sort of special source, their own little recipe to it. And yeah, what one what is sort of good for one market's not good for another. And you always hear people say, talk about oh, the African market. It's like the Africa market, it's like Africa's a huge, huge, huge continent with hundreds of countries, and within every country, there's different towns and cities, and you know, each market's different, and you have to sort and grade according to what your customer wants, and everyone has different customers. So I remember him coming back from Uganda once, he was so happy because he'd managed to basically sell denim jackets, and Mr. Godfrey was sort of adamant that nobody in Uganda was wearing denim jackets. So as he's driving through Kampala, dad was saying, you know, he's just counting everyone in a denim jacket. And by the time he got to 100, Godfrey's like, okay, put some bales on.
SPEAKER_01I love that denim jackets becoming fashionable in Uganda, and then your dad adjusting his grading accordingly to that market demand.
SPEAKER_00I think sometimes, you know, there's certain bales and grades that that's what the importers make their money on. They have to balance it and make sure everything sells, or try to make everything sell if and find a market for it. And sometimes, you know, it's a case of developing that market. I think high vis was the one that, you know, health and safety in Europe, everyone had to wear high-vis. So we inevitably got lots of high-vis jackets, and it was a case of, oh, we just put a couple of bales on the container, they sell, and they did. And then then it came a point that people were actually asking for them because health and safety everywhere happened.
SPEAKER_01And then on the note of high-vis and workware, with LB, you do a workware repair program. Could you please share with us what what the workware repair program is about?
SPEAKER_00Um so obviously with workware, it's always really well made. Because people obviously want their staff looking good and it's very functional, but you know, like anything, it gets broken, it gets damaged. So, you know, you repair in it works again. So we're working actually with the prison industries. They're I don't know, not a lot of people know this, but uh prisons are the biggest textile manufacturer in the UK.
SPEAKER_01Really? I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00No, nobody does for it because it's behind closed doors such. And they always they've always made their own clothing and uniforms. Um, so we're working with them again because you know, they go for a lot and you know, stuff gets damaged or somebody's been issued and worn it and then needs fixing. So we're actually looking at how we can do repairs with them. Um, and there's a massive, you know, if you talk to Sojo or United Repair, there is quite a skills gap in this country for people who've got those skills and it's a different skill set than actually manufacturing new clothing. Um, so yeah, hopefully there's all jobs and training to be there and you know, getting that you know, ethos of making amending back into people's psyche.
SPEAKER_01Make it mainstream.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01How else does that repair process factor into the materials that you're receiving in for post-consumer textiles? So from the textile banks, from the local authorities?
SPEAKER_00Repair is, you know, something that all the brands are really interested in. And we've got um Lizzie in-house that does repairs, having the zips and the buttons from something that is, you know, needs is going to be recycled, but you know, salvaging those zips and buttons because you know another garment's gonna come in that needs it, and you can't just it's really hard actually to buy those sort of things and actually get ones that match the same as the original clothing.
SPEAKER_01And you recently did a project with Passenger where you made a quilted blanket out of old passenger clothing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So Lizzie um and the team at Passenger came up with the idea of this blanket, and they was taking um old coats and then sort of the quilted coats and taking them and patchworking together. So she did this sort of like little sample and then the big one that went out and But from you know, talking to Lizzie, she said it was actually very difficult to get it so the texture was even and the padding, because obviously different coats have worn differently, or the padding's a different thickness, so to get it, you know, looking and feeling like a sort of new blanket, but I don't think that's equally some ways the idea is things don't have to look new, and I think that's something that passenger have been really sort of looking into about having visible repairs, so taking on an old coat and perhaps not using the exactly the same colour stripe but a different one. And I think that's something that you know people are wearing them as a badge of honour now. People want to have clothes that you can see have been repaired, and it's like, no, actually, I'm sort of putting something back into this, and it's you know, customisation, you know, it's a great way of sort of showing your own identity.
SPEAKER_01Like patching a pair of bell bottom flares back in the 60s.
SPEAKER_00Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or all the trends come back around. And I like the think that's a good trend to have for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's like I remember when I was growing up, there's always people with like heavy metal denim jackets with all the badges of the bands on, and you don't really see them so much anymore, but go up to Camden, you occasionally do.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, it's just sort of I wonder if bands are still making patches. They sh must be.
SPEAKER_00I don't know.
SPEAKER_01What was the last gig you went to?
SPEAKER_00Uh Soul to soul. So they definitely wasn't wearing patches.
SPEAKER_01Oh, amazing. Where did you see them?
SPEAKER_00Uh where was it? Up in Camden. I can't remember the name of the venue. It was amazing.
SPEAKER_01It was really back to life.
SPEAKER_00Back to life, yeah. And it's quite nice because I actually felt young.
SPEAKER_01Back to life, how appropriate, because that's what you're doing. You're bringing life back to clothing. And I would love to learn a bit more about your the journey from L and B textiles into reskin. Tell us about the early days when you were sat around the table with the mailing bags, the Argo steamer, arguing about coffee stains.
SPEAKER_00My dad had decided he'd retire. Um by that point, I think I'd started looking at the market, and it had changed so much from sort of in the 90s and early noughties. Most of the sorting and grading is now done predominantly in Dubai or India and Pakistan. So that's that industry's kind of left Europe. There is obviously still a number of people still doing it, but it's getting harder. And I was like looking at it thinking, this is a different way to do things. Um fashion brands had begun to start doing take back. They were beginning to look at, you know, I think, well, EPR was becoming known within sort of other industries of the car sector, electricals and what have you, and you could see it was going to be a change um within the sector. So oddly, Matt, who's my co-founder at Reskind, he's background sales and marketing and tech. I knew him, my our kids went to school together. So we're sort of like sitting around in the pub, or you know, probably mainly in the pub, I'd like to say drinking coffee, but all great ideas happening in the pub. And he was like, you know, uh listening to about you know the LMB side of things, he's like, it seems to be quite low tech, and I'm like, yeah, it is fairly low tech. And he's like, if you bring in, you know, stuff that's in other industries and change it up a little bit, uh there's something there, and you can actually scale it. And I think the thing that stops a lot of businesses within the salting and gradient sector is the scalability of it. Not that there's not enough scale, it's actually training that many staff and getting it consistent. Which now, you know, what's happening with AI and you're hearing about people doing automated salting, it actually looks like it could happen. It's still going to have, you know, a human interaction, but you know, a camera and a computer can recognise a stain, they can recognise there's a buttons missing, they can tell you, you know, what brand it is, give you a fair idea of where it might sell and what the pricing are, and it's sort of it changes things a lot. Um and um with that I think Reskinned has always tried to use technology wherever it can just to some ways make life easier for everyone, but also give that scale. I was trying to work out sort of the mapping of the clothes that come in and what goes in what bin, and I got to about 190 different subcategories really quickly. Wow. And everyone, yeah, wow. But if you think, you know, t-shirt, men's t-shirt, ladies' t-shirt, sizes of it, whether it's a casual one, summer ones, use it's so easy.
SPEAKER_01So many different categories.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, whether it's and then yeah, levels of reuse within that, whether it's grade A, grade C, or whatever it happens to be, it gets complicated.
SPEAKER_01Then with reskinned, you're this is focusing on the textiles that you're collecting or textiles that you're receiving from just the brands?
SPEAKER_00So Reskinned and LMB are sort of very much separate. LMB now has stopped um collecting and sorting grading, and it's very much um a recycling business at the moment. Um, so we work mainly doing wiping mails, we do sort of other things as an aggregator. Um and Reskined is very much focused working with brands. So everything that Reskin gets is via a brand partner. So it's through a take back service whereby the brands sort of essentially say to their customers, if you've got anything available that you no longer wear, send it back to Reskined, either in-store donation boxes or postal service. We then get it and we say it can be any quality. And I think that's really important. Um, you can't just say we only want the good stuff, because then what happens to the bad stuff? And you know, where is that going? You've got to find a solution for everything. Um, and some brands have actually extended it so it's not just their own clothing. They say, you know, one or two of our um garments, then you can send anything back, which I think's a very strong thing to do. Um, and I think that's probably the way the industry will go. And then, yeah, so when it comes back to us, we take it, we examine it. Um most brands say, you know, it has to be one of ours, so we verify that. As soon as we've done that, customer gets a voucher so they can use that with the brand, which you know that's really good. And I think that's some people say you're sort of rewarding people, but you know, that's what everyone wants, you know, it's you're doing something good, and you then get you know a reward for doing so. That's that's a nice way of doing it. Um yeah, so then we will grade it, and whether it's what we say is um resale, so that will either be on our own platform, resinned, or quite often now it's in partnership with the brand on eBay, so we host stores for them, so we're their verified um supplier.
SPEAKER_01Um, and you recently did an eBay live with Marks and Spencer's.
SPEAKER_00We did, did you?
SPEAKER_01How'd that go?
SPEAKER_00It went amazing. I really should know all the facts and figures, but it the engagement from the customers was through the roof, loads of sales, and you know, it's really exciting what eBay Live's doing because it's it gets that sort of interaction. It's a bit like the old days of the shopping channels, which I don't even know they're still going.
SPEAKER_01QVC. Yeah. A very different vibe, I'd imagine, nowadays. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It was, yeah, it's a different vibe to QVC. And it wasn't like hard selling, it was, you know, people talking about the clothes, bringing out the history of it, pre-love garments, you know. Also, you know, you can discuss the size and the fit and what else you'd wear it with, and really get into it that you probably can't on other platforms. And yeah, it's that whole interaction, but then also people watch it, hopefully enjoy it, and then go and you know, explore further within the store and sort of the brand. And yeah, I can see it being, you know, the future.
SPEAKER_01I'm definitely going to check it out. I haven't watched it yet, but congratulations on your success and this whole concept of live shopping. This this is really innovative and this is a new way of shopping. So Reskin started in 2002 around a table, mailing bags, Argo Steamer argues about coffee stains. Are coffee stains the hardest stain to remove?
SPEAKER_00I'm not going to go into the hardest stain to remove.
SPEAKER_01Is that an emotive subject?
SPEAKER_00No, not at all. Um Do you know what? I'm always surprised how good a quality stuff we receive, clothing we receive. We say you can send anything back, but on the whole, everyone's washed it. I don't we might have had one or two bits in that, you know, haven't been washed. Um, but that is and it's the same, you know, when people give to charity shops, it's always washed clean. If you go to textile banks, very rarely it's dirty. And I think that's yeah, that would I think that shows that people who are taking part are taking it seriously. And sweaty Betty customers always seem to use sweaty betty packaging to send it back. Because we say, you know, use any packaging, we don't send bags out, there's enough packaging in the world, we don't need to be sending more.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And we do get the Sainsbridge bag, Tesco's or whatever happens, you know, gaffer taped up. But then also we get people where they've literally sort of folded it, put it in tissue, taken really amazing care, and it's excellent that the people do that. Um, and on you saying about stains, I think when we first started the business, it was looking at what actually sometimes stops people from buying free loved. We, you know, there's eBay vintage, you know, all of these places a testament to there's a lot of people buying um free love clothing. But we wanted to try and look at how we can get people that perhaps wouldn't be, you know, get new people involved. And so we looked at, you know, what prohibits people, what would be off putting. And one of the things we found was just that sort of whole somebody else has worn it. And that a lot of time comes down to the Like ick value of smell, or you know, if it smells of somebody else's perfume or washing powder, that sort of hits something in your head. So we got the ozone machine, which just neutralises it. You know, it's sanitary, 98% of bacteria killed and everything. And yeah, just making it easy for people to buy pre-loved. We do, you know, returns. Our return rate's really small, which is amazing. It's about 8%, which for an online is really good. And I think that's also because we're so conscious that everyone's sizing different, you know, colours are different on screen. That's a big reason for returning. So we've worked really hard on getting the text so we list our clothing really well with set parameters so you know what you're getting. Also, the photography is such a strong thing, you know. People tend to do shop with their eyes and not actually read anything. So we make sure that if there is something like a small stain or a mark, there's a big arrow that shows you it, and we explain it. So yeah, I think it's just giving people confidence that what they see is what they're gonna get. And fortunate we've managed to do that.
SPEAKER_01We've mentioned Sweatybetty, Passenger, Marks and Spencer's. Are you focusing on working with UK brands only, or are you working with brands internationally?
SPEAKER_00So yeah, as you say, sort of from going our very first brand, which was Finister, um, who took a massive leap of faith and you know, so thankful for them for doing so because you know it wasn't easy in the beginning. We started 2019, COVID hit, and then 2020 when it started getting going. But since then, the sort of adoption and the amount of brands that are talking to us and interested, and you know, some of them are doing their own thing, there's other people out there, which is again a great thing within the industry, it's so big that there's enough room for everyone to do slightly different things and new ideas come through. Um, but yeah, uh talking to an awful lot of brands, and hopefully later in the year we're gonna open up in Europe. So that then means we can start, you know, offering it across Europe. And that's I think some of the brands, more international brands, like, well, we can't just do it in one country, we have to offer it internationally. So yeah, working with reeconomy and everyone's making that a little bit easier as well.
SPEAKER_01Do you have a timeline for when you're looking to launch in Europe?
SPEAKER_00Um, yeah, I we're hoping it's gonna be sort of early summer. It's a case of just getting when we set up the business was we knew that we'd have to grow and scale. So we did from the very start make sure everything could be replicated. So if anyone's been to our place in Canningtown or seen it on YouTube and various videos, we're gonna hopefully replicate that exactly the same and yeah, start start from there and who knows where next.
SPEAKER_01In the EU, we have legislation as a driver behind textile circularity. We've got textile EPR in France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Latvia. It's getting mandated EU-wide. We have the ban on the destruction of unsold goods through ESPR. In the UK, there isn't that legislation as a driver for circularity. What do you think has been the cultural shift that has increased the brands that are looking to set up take back?
SPEAKER_00The brands we're working with are doing it because they know it's the right thing. And I think some of that does come from their customers. Some of it is just people are saying, you know, the way that this system's set up doesn't seem to be working, there's overproduction, there's a lot of waste throughout, you know, the supply chain, how can we correct this? And I think also, in some ways, it's the right thing, sustainability ethically, but also from a business point of view.
SPEAKER_01If a brand out there that's listening is looking to start take back and they don't know where to start, what advice would you give them?
SPEAKER_00Come and see us. Um I think it's like all of these things, it if you look at it, it can be very daunting. But if you just start in a small way with one thing, and that's where our take back is so easy for a brand to implement. There's no tech involvement. Um, it looks and feels like your brand store, but it's actually spun off of Rails, its own site. It then does return you to your own website. For a brand to say, we will take it back, that's just shows so much confidence in what you're doing. You know, you're you've got trust in your clothes, are they gonna last? And you're gonna say to people, Well, you know, everyone grows out clothes, don't like it anymore. You know, it is fashion at the end of the day. We don't all walk around in a black polo neck and a uniform with it's an identity, isn't it? So people are always getting trained, but it's just like saying, you know, it's got value to it, and we will take it back. And I think I definitely see in the future of people making purchasing decisions based on that. It's sort of, you know, I always use the analogies of the cars, you know, you buy an expensive German car because you know it's got residual barrel value in five years' time. You buy sort of perhaps a more expensive item of clothing that you know you're gonna keep, and you also know that the brand will take you back and you can buy something else if you change your mind.
SPEAKER_01Take back and resale is innovative. We've covered a lot about what's innovative on the reuse side of things. I would like to talk a bit about what's happening with recycling. LMB has recycled textiles into wiper rags for almost 40 years. Please share with us the projects that you're working with and where you see the future for recycling going for textiles.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if anyone knows Dr. John from Menunio. He actually retired last week. And yeah, so someone like Dr. John would have been in the industry with Uncle Arthur's suit and known how to recycle it. And now, you know, he's gone, and there isn't people, unfortunately, that know about this. Um when I came into the industry, all of our walls, all of our flock used to go up to Yorkshire, and there were so many shoddy mills, and there's a couple left, and in Europe there's a couple. So sad. And it's not because clothing can't be recycled anymore, it's because it's cheaper to buy in foam and polyester-filled um homewares and beds, and it's gonna take a lot for that side of the industry to actually get their voice heard, and for, you know, a lot of brands that aren't anything to do with clothing actually realise that commodity, that resource exists, and it didn't used to be seen as a waste. It was, you know, it it was flock, it was shoddy, you know, when was shoddy invented, like 1857 or something ridiculous. And sadly, that seems to be when technology and clothing recycling began and ended until, as you say, chemical recycling now is coming, and people are looking at textile to textile recycling. You've got Circulose, you've got SIRE, you've got Warn again, I've just heard of doing, you've got Rean Up. There's loads of companies that are sort of just beginning to commercialise. And I think some of the challenges they've had, the whole system needs setting up again. You know, clothing has been collected and sorted and graded for reuse, not for recycling. The technology on how you do grade for recycling hasn't really moved on until you know, hyperspectral cameras have come in, near field. And that's only that's technology has only come across from plastic recycling and other recycling. It's not new. Um, but you know, it's it takes a while to learn and the sort of grades don't have that technology. The volumes that people are talking are mind-blowing, you know, these gigaplants that are gonna do 50 to 100,000 tonnes a year, um, they know they need building and they need um they need the feedstock, and that's been a big problem. You know, if you're going to invest hundreds of millions into a plant, you've got to be pretty sure that there's enough feedstock to keep it going, and on the other side, that there's enough companies that are willing to buy your fibre, your yarn, your material, your fabric, which what and what is good feedstock? So that is a very good question. I think at the moment it seems to be monofibres is what everyone wants. So 100% cotton, 100% wool, 100% polyester. Then a lot of them are able to do the blend. So polycotton, I think 70% of clothing is polycotton, so you know that's a pretty easy win. And the polyester recyclers can go down to 70% polyester, and it seems the cotton recyclers can go down to 70% um cotton. So somewhere in the middle you've got 50-50, and both systems, as far as I can ascertain, can take the mix. It's just that they either strip out the polyester or they strip out the cotton, and it's then having something to do with what to them's a waste and just actually getting it back to something that you can put back into a supply chain.
SPEAKER_01Reskined, next step, Europe.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01LMB, next step.
SPEAKER_00LMB, I think next step is definitely looking at how we can set up a system to get recycling you know on scale. So we're we worked on the Innovate project. So looking at automated textile sorting facilities. Um we've come up with our own sort of idea on how to do that. So we're just doing some RD on hyperspectral cameras, colour sorting, what end use end markets are out there. And that works with Reskinned as well, because Reskinned, um, you know, a lot of the brands want to get into textile to textile, but to do that you need some significant volume. And no brand's really going to have that much volume, especially until take back becomes, you know, the norm. You're not just going to be able to get that. So you have to aggregate it. So I think with Reskind, we always say to people, you know, working together is the way to do this. And fortunately, I think in the UK, or generally within sustainability, everyone sort of realizes you've got to do it together. It's not a competition. As an industry, if they work together, there's a lot more chance of being successful than them getting there.
SPEAKER_01Collaboration is key. Engage with consumers on the great work that you're doing around sustainability and engage with policymakers. Because if you don't steer the conversation, they'll steer it for you. Any other advice for brands and retailers out there?
SPEAKER_00I think for any brand or retailer that's looking at it is scary and it's daunting. And I think internally they have to win over the C-suite, they have to get the finance team on board. And I think what we're hopefully showing brands is it doesn't have to cost you anything, and actually it can earn you money. Doing the right thing and having confidence in your own brand through a take back program, through a resale program, that's just a great message for your customers. And I think there's so many clothing brands out there, and everyone's competing for share of wardrobe. You know, so if you can just get your own customers on board, you get that loyalty, you get the conversation going with them, you get to learn about them, you know, that's got to be great for business for anyone, whether it's fashion or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01Ross, for our listeners here today, if they're looking to start a take back program or just learn more about LMB textiles and reskinned, how do they get a hold of you and the team?
SPEAKER_00Well, I suppose the easy ones, go to our website that's got our contact details on there. If anyone brand, even if you're sort of like very early doors and you're considering this in future, come and talk to us or talk to some of the other brands that we work with and just see how their experience is.
SPEAKER_01Ross, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me. It's been great. And yeah, it's been really thank you for asking me. It's been it's actually been fun.
SPEAKER_01This has been a Circular Soundbites podcast from Reconomy. If you enjoyed today's episode and you'd like to listen to more circular sound bites, you can find us streaming on all major platforms as well as on our YouTube channel. And if you want to learn more about Reconomy, check us out on LinkedIn or at Reconomy.com.