New Look, M&S, Sainsbury’s and Oxfam Join Forces With Circle-8 To Build On the UK’s Circular Textile Economy

New Look, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Oxfam and Circle-8 have just announced a collaborative initiative designed to help build a more circular textile economy in the UK: The Circuit. 

Beginning in January 2027, the project will bring together retailers, textile recovery specialists, automated sorting technology, recyclers, manufacturers and digital innovators, with the ambition of finding new ways to turn clothing that can no longer be worn or reused into valuable raw materials.

It is precisely the kind of collaboration that the fashion industry needs. In 2024, around 1.4 million tonnes of post-consumer textiles were generated across the UK, according to figures cited by the initiative. Almost half is estimated to consist of textiles that are no longer reusable. While charity shops and resale platforms can play an important role in keeping wearable clothing in circulation, there comes a point when a garment has simply reached the end of its useful life. The question then becomes: what happens next?

Too often, the answer has been that the material leaves the circular conversation altogether. The Circuit is attempting to address that missing stage by creating pathways through which non-reusable textiles can be collected, sorted and processed into materials that can ultimately be used in the production of new textiles.

That is an important distinction. Circularity cannot simply mean encouraging people to donate clothes or buy second-hand. Those are valuable parts of the picture, but a genuinely circular system also needs an answer for the jumper full of moth holes, the faded T-shirt that nobody wants to buy, or the garment whose fibres have become too damaged for another wearer.

This is where the involvement of Oxfam is particularly interesting. Oxfam has almost 80 years of experience in clothing reuse and textile recovery. Its role at the organisation’s Batley site in Yorkshire will involve separating reusable and non-reusable textiles and operating automated sorting equipment. Bringing that knowledge together with the scale, infrastructure and commercial reach of major retailers creates an intriguing partnership between two very different parts of the clothing ecosystem.

It also demonstrates why the circular economy cannot be created by one organisation acting alone. Retailers have access to customers, clothing volumes and supply chains. Charities have decades of experience in collecting, sorting and finding new homes for unwanted garments. Technology companies can develop automated sorting systems. Recyclers can develop mechanical and chemical processes capable of turning old fibres into new raw materials. Manufacturers can potentially incorporate those materials back into new products.

The Circuit’s proposition is therefore bigger than simply recycling clothes. It is about trying to build the infrastructure and commercial conditions that could make fibre-to-fibre recycling viable at an industrial scale. That matters because recycling technology alone is not enough. For circularity to become commercially viable, there needs to be a reliable supply of suitable material, effective sorting, traceability, processing capacity and, crucially, someone willing to buy the resulting recycled fibres.

The initiative’s first phase is intended to explore exactly those questions. It will test automated sorting, develop reporting and traceability frameworks, identify opportunities for recovered materials and build relationships with recyclers.

There is also an encouraging sense of experimentation about the project. Rather than claiming that the circular textile economy has already been solved, The Circuit acknowledges that systems are still emerging and that more testing and learning are required. That is perhaps the most credible way forward.

But there is a much bigger question sitting behind this announcement. Can a high street clothing fundamentally built around high-volume sales ever become truly sustainable?

It is a question worth asking without diminishing the value of initiatives such as The Circuit. The high street fashion model has traditionally depended upon selling large quantities of new, low cost products, encouraging frequent purchasing and responding rapidly to changing trends. Recycling garments at the end of their lives is undoubtedly preferable to simply discarding them, but it does not, on its own, address questions around how many clothes are produced, how often they are purchased, how long they are worn, or the resources required to manufacture them in the first place.

There is a danger that recycling can become the final piece of a system that remains fundamentally linear: produce, sell, wear and recycle — then produce more.

At the same time, it would be unfair to suggest that recycling initiatives are therefore insignificant. Creating systems capable of recovering fibres at scale could be an important piece of the puzzle, particularly for garments that genuinely cannot be reused. A circular economy needs multiple solutions working together: better design, longer-lasting clothing, repair, resale, reuse, responsible purchasing and effective recycling.

M&S’s ambition through its Plan A for Another Life, for example, includes giving five million items another life by 2030 through rewear, repair, resale and recycling. That broader approach is significant because it recognises that recycling should not necessarily be the first destination for a garment. Keeping clothing in use for longer generally has a different role from recovering its raw materials once its useful life has ended.

The Circuit therefore deserves attention not because it provides a simple answer to fashion’s sustainability challenge, but because it represents a willingness from major retailers and a major charity to work together on a difficult part of the problem.

Perhaps the real test will be what happens next. Will initiatives like this ultimately help the high street reduce its dependence on virgin materials and become genuinely more circular? Can large retailers reconcile the economics of high-volume sales with the environmental imperative to consume fewer resources? And could collaborations between commercial brands, charities, recyclers and manufacturers eventually reshape the way clothing is designed, sold, used and recovered? The Circuit promises to mark a big step in the right direction.