A prime example of a circular and sustainable business model is the professional linen and workwear rental service, which reduces waste by using durable textiles rather than cheap or disposable items, maximizes their useful life by expert maintenance and repairs, and finds ways to recycle them after their useful lives are over.
The European Commission, among other things, started the transition of the apparel manufacturing sector from a consumption-based business model to a circular economy that is more sustainable with its “Green Deal.” By 2030, textile items with a longer life cycle will gradually replace fast fashion, helping to reduce environmental pollution. Textiles need to be more resilient, reusable, repairable, recyclable from fiber to fiber, and include a higher percentage of recycled fibers in order to meet this goal. For the textile-service industry, the Brussels circularity requirements have long been standard procedure because renting out protective gear, workwear, mop covers, hotel and hospital linen, and other items requires precisely these qualities, i.e., the fabrics must be long-lasting, easily repaired, and washable. These characteristics allow rented linen to stay in the service cycle for an extended period of time, making it a viable substitute for outright purchases.
The circular system’s laundry
The textile-rental service provides a range of systems designed to meet the requirements of various clientele segments. Textile-service laundries carry a variety of sizes of workwear and protective apparel so that each customer’s staff can be outfitted appropriately. After that, it is labeled and given to the wearer specifically. If the worker quits from the customer, the clothes are returned and, if in excellent shape, used again as replacement apparel. A pool solution is more typical when it comes to workwear for the healthcare industry, bed linens, table linens, and towels.Similar textiles that are provided without being assigned to a particular client or wearer make up a laundry pool, which drastically lowers the amount of textiles consumed.
Another important aspect of commercial textile care is local textile cleaning, which aids in extending the life of textiles by processing a variety of commodities expertly on behalf of both commercial and private clients. Restored items include fine undergarments and outerwear, upscale home textiles, delicate down jackets, and extremely stained workwear. All items are left looking brand new and functional. In the event that stains remain persistent even after washing, a specialized organization can apply a new color to the items, guaranteeing their reuse.
The advantages of textile leasing services for recycling
In addition to the two primary objectives of “reuse” and “repair,” the industry is putting a lot of effort into recycling used textiles as mandated by the EU textile policy. Numerous manufacturers of workwear have created their own return policies, allowing consumers to return used clothing in exchange for new merchandise. Afterwards, affiliated organizations recycle or repurpose the used work clothes. Big businesses like Deutsche Telekom and Ikea has also implemented a centralized system for recycling and returns of used workwear. In fact, the furniture behemoth has used recycled work clothes to launch its own collection of home textiles. Nonetheless, using a rental service is the most straightforward approach to put such a system into place because the products are always brought back to the specialized business and sorted there. Put another way, after washing, worn laundry is gathered in one location and generates a significant volume of comparable waste textiles, which considerably streamlines the logistics of both collecting and recycling. Thanks to these favorable circumstances, a pilot program has already been launched, whereby a number of textile service providers combine their leftover hotel linens and direct them toward commercial cotton-to-pulp recycling. Whether they are solo or collaborative projects, this demonstrates the industry’s dedication to creating “waste materials” solutions.
Upcycling textiles to create designer goods
Rejected textiles can be used for many purposes besides recycling. For instance, the Fristads company in Sweden provides workwear repair services. John Lewis, a British department store chain, takes it a step further. Customers can submit their clothing for cleaning and mending to certain businesses as part of a field trial. The Timpson Group’s Johnsons laundry and dry cleaning network handles the processing of the clothing. Additionally, designers have realized there are prospects for repurposing discarded contract fabrics and workwear. For instance, people disassemble and reassemble objects from their collections or adorn them with intricate ornamentation. The products that have been artistically improved are subsequently put back on the market as designer goods. Additionally, there are recycling options for big contract textiles, which are repurposed as cosmetic items, bags, or small batches of aprons following a color change. But the impact of these ideas on Their diversity is as little as their reduction of textile waste. Larger amounts can only be brought back into the economic cycle by the well-established second-hand model.
Cons and advantages of repurposed materials
The EU textile strategy’s requirements are universally supported by the textile care sector, which is also offering solutions. However, there is disagreement within the industry over the increase of recycled fiber content in goods. While many workwear collections and hotel linen lines already satisfy Brussels’ requirements, some goods fail to fulfill durability standards as a result of degradation in fiber quality throughout the recycling process. To maintain longevity in industrial laundry, several contract-textile manufacturers still only use virgin, fresh fiber materials. The industry has the ideal forum to go into further detail about this conflict of interests at Texcare International.
