Many of the EBN members who attended last November’s Fashion and Sustainability Live show will remember hearing the amazing story of one of our panellists, Salli Deighton.
Salli’s business, LaundRe, is an on shore circular solution for old or discarded jeans. They are the UK’s first denim sustainable reprocessing hub, transforming jeans by adding a new used and faded finish through clean, green laser and ozone technology.
Working with both brands and retailers Salli and her team can transform unsold stock and waste denim into new jeans for resale.
In east London’s Canning Town, a quite fashion revolution is taking place. This will be the home of LaundRe’s dynamic textile recycling plant where 93% of the textiles it receives will be recycled or reused. If ever there was a definition of the circular economy in action it is LaundRe, which is run by CEO Salli Deighton, or Salli Denim, as she is sometimes fondly called. LaundRe has the capacity to finish up to 250,000 jeans every year, most of which would have ended up in landfill in some way or other.
Leading charity WRAP stated in their Extended Producer Responsibility report that it takes 8,000 litres of water to produce one pair of jeans and that as much as 47% of jeans manufactured are never sold! Let’s put that into context: in the UK alone there were 70m pairs of jeans sold last year, so we can surmise that some 30m + pairs were unsold in this country alone. Where do they go? That is a crazy statistic and one that the leading retail brands need to have a proper look at!
Through a combination of digital design, laser finishing and nebulising technology using humidity and ozone LaundRe’s processes reduce up to 90% of the 70 litres of water that a normal process would consume. LaundRe can change the shade and design of old jeans to give them a second, and even third, life.
Salli tells us she is very close to securing the total funding requirement she needs but is keen to talk to any investors that may want to get involved. You can reach her directly on [email protected]
To get a better understanding of what LaundRe does check out their video HERE
