Homewares retailer Dunelm has rolled out a textile recycling scheme in 10 of its UK stores, allowing customers to recycle old and unwanted household fabrics.
The new scheme, which was previously piloted in the Nottingham and Stockton stores, launched on Monday 19th October and has been developed in partnership with London-based recycling company First Mile. The initiative will see unwanted textiles recycled within the UK.
First Mile will collect unwanted fabrics from stores, which will then be recycled into usable fillers for car seats and boxing bags, as well as oil rags, amongst other items.
Dunelm has made a commitment to becoming more sustainable as a business in 2020, through more sustainable product ranges, reduced carbon emissions, and waste management. The brand is urging its customers to help create a more circular economy, by prolonging the lifecycle of unwanted fabrics, which could otherwise end up in landfill.
By making recycling easy for its customers, Dunelm hopes to make this a much more common part of the product lifecycle.
In order to take part, customers can bring any clean, unwanted textiles to dedicated recycling areas in-store. First Mile says it will then collect the waste fabrics, which will be recycled at UK facilities. Anything that cannot be recycled, will be used to produce renewable energy for the National Grid.
Shriya Pancholi, Sustainability Lead at Dunelm, said: “We’ve launched our textile recycling scheme because we want to help do our bit for the environment and give products a second life. We’re delighted to be doing this in partnership with a brilliant company like First Mile, which has a ‘zero to landfill’ way of doing things.
“We want to get better at caring for the environment and helping to make recycling easier for our customers, as well as make it a normal part of how we view textiles in day-to-day life.
“We really hope our customers join us in taking a step in this direction.”
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