LPP and Sustainable Fashion Institute in pilot project for circular fashion
LPP, an apparel company, has partnered with the Sustainable Fashion Institute (SFI) – a Polish platform that supports brands in building a sustainable future for the apparel industry. As part of a pilot project, SFI is supporting the company in its search for an effective method to recycle mixed materials, allowing them to be reused as full-value materials for garment production. For LPP, this is yet another step toward circular fashion and the use of textile waste in the spirit of a circular economy.
Polycotton, a blend of polyester and cotton, is one of the most popular materials used in the apparel industry and accounts for about half of the world’s textile waste. In parallel, the chances of garments made from mixed materials gaining a second life as a fabric or garment are much lower as compared with the garment made entirely from a single type of fiber. With this in mind, LPP, in cooperation with Sustainable Fashion Institute (SFI), decided to undertake a search for suppliers of an effective method of recycling mixed material blends. As part of a pilot project, SFI presented the Gdańsk-based company with a list of potential partners ready to convert such textile waste into full-value materials.
– The cooperation with SFI is a pilot research and development project that has helped us explore the options for recycling cotton and viscose and blends of these materials with polyester, as well as cotton materials with prints or coatings. With the Institute’s support, we can compare the various solutions currently offered on the global market. The partners proposed by SFI will ultimately present us with samples of recycled materials that will be created from the raw material blends we delivered. This will allow us to see if the technologies currently available meet our production needs. The quality of the samples provided by the partners, the cost of the process and its scalability will determine whether we can use these methods – says Ewa Janczukowicz-Cichosz, sustainability expert at LPP.
The institute began the process of looking for potential partners offering blend recycling as early as last autumn. As part of the pilot, which was completed in the last days of January, the SFI team also conducted an analysis of recycled textiles, assessed the potential of available technologies, and designed downstream processing paths for each material grade.
– While it’s easy to recycle cotton or polyester, in blends the fibers are closely interconnected, so they require the development of an efficient technology to separate them. Mechanical separation does not always work, and chemical separation still poses both practical and environmental problems. The relevant know-how is slowly appearing on the market, and we have already participated in hundreds of tests as part of the research process, in cooperation with LPP. However, even if the trials prove successful, the introduction of the method on a larger scale will require some major commitment, such as outlays on new production infrastructure. That is why cross-sectoral cooperation between research centers, public institutions, startups and big business is so important here. For all these reasons, we appreciate LPP’s proactive attitude, its initiative in the process of finding appropriate solutions for recycling, and we are happy to be a part of this – says Ewa Polkowska, Sustainable Fashion Institute.
The SFI platform, founded in 2021, helps apparel companies adapt to changes in regulatory requirements and expectations of the general public regarding sustainability. By offering transparency and supply chain management tools, the Institute provides support and advice on strategy development, identification of risks and opportunities related to the implementation of circular economy criteria, recycling and onboarding of certified suppliers.
– In 2021, the size of the global textile recycling market was estimated at about USD 4.54bn. Europe accounted for as much as 29.78% of the share here over the past two years. These are positive signs that show not only a growing public awareness, but also greater openness on the part of stakeholders representing apparel companies. By participating in the change process, we want to support the implementation of circular economy criteria in the processes of apparel companies, especially those with an operational scale like LPP, which have a strong influence on the entire market, the opportunity to test innovations and inspire others to follow – says Ewelina Antonowicz, co-founder of SFI.
For LPP, the pilot project in cooperation with SFI is yet another step towards circular fashion and the use of textile waste in line with the principles of a closed loop economy. In parallel, the apparel company, together with Use Waste, a Polish start -up, is researching the options of developing its own technology for producing fibers from polyester textile waste based on the textile-to-textile idea. The company has earmarked a sum of PLN 1m to this end, which will serve to fund the research process until the end of this year.
– We are committed to finding a solution that would allow us to treat used clothing not as waste, but as a resource that is reused in the production of clothing – regardless of whether we mean multi- or single-material fabrics. Our goal is to keep raw materials in circulation and thus reduce textile waste and minimize the environmental footprint of a piece of clothing once produced – says Ewa Janczukowicz-Cichosz, sustainability expert at LPP.
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LPP is a Polish family business and one of the fastest growing clothing companies in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. For 30 years, it has been successfully operating in Poland and abroad, offering its collections in such prestigious capitals as London, Helsinki or Tel Aviv. LPP manages five fashion brands: Reserved, Cropp, House, Mohito, and Sinsay, whose offer is available today in stationary and online stores in nearly 40 markets worldwide. The company has a chain of over 1800 stores with the total area of 1.5 million m2 and distributes clothing and accessories to three continents every year. LPP also plays an important role as it employs over 24 thousand people in its offices and sales structures in Poland, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The company is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the WIG20 index and belongs to the prestigious MSCI Poland index.