02/10/2026
Back to sustainability folks, we've been working with our clients to find solutions that work for them.
SUSTAINABILITY DRIVE AT THE CENTRE FOR ADVANCED TEXTILES
The Centre for Advanced Textiles has launched a re-purposing and sustainability drive.
In connection with GSA Textiles, Technical Support Department and GSA Sustainability we’ve been looking into options available for our customers both past and present to deal with waste product.
Here are several clients who have joined the campaign and what they have chosen to do with the flawed fabrics;
Timorous Beasties have taken faulty fabrics back to make into new products, and they also donate fabric to Dumfries House and Refuweegee.
Laura Spring, Helen Ruth and Emma Greenhill have taken faulty fabrics back to make into new products.
Susan Carson of Carson & Co donated her fabrics to Wilde Ones for use in re-purposing workshops; even featuring in a workshop that was part of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026 community events.
Fraser Taylor, Molesworth and Bird, Iona Crawford, Green Thomas, and Herman Lee have donated pieces to GSA Fashion and Textiles department for students to use in projects.
Molesworth & Bird and Fraser Taylor donated these samples to GSA Textiles students
Carol Lake and Lux & Bloom have agreed to include their ‘seconds’ in our Christmas Sale as part of our designer range.
DONATION OF UNPRINTED FABRIC TO GSA TEXTILES
In addition, we have donated over 100m of unprinted ‘roll-end’ fabric to the Textile Department for use in screen printing, dyeing, sampling and product creation. Included in the donation were silks, viscose, linen and cotton blends. This represents more than £1500 worth of stock that the textile department would otherwise have had to purchase.
What is waste product for us?
Generally, our process has minimal waste and many of our clients are happy to take faulty or flawed prints that can be made into products.
We accumulate flawed, faulty, and less than perfect printed and unprinted fabrics when jobs are being printed on the digital printers and during our pretreatment and finishing processes.
First, we ask our clients if they can accept the faulty print for a discount cost. In most of these situations we are left with a partial or incomplete print that becomes our waste product. We will restart the original job to achieve an acceptable print for the client.
Things that happen during printing to create waste;
• Perhaps a print head will become blocked creating a ‘bandy’ quality.
• The fabric might get caught underneath the print head. This means it will become marked across the print design. Again, the print is imperfect, and the client is unlikely to accept it as a full cost product.
• The fabric might have weave flaw or pre-print production fault that is not visible until the fabric reaches the printing process.
• There may be small wet marks affecting the fabric on our reactive printing machine. This happens because of the print bed holding moisture after it is washed and not being fully dry before reaching the print zone.
• The print area on some fabrics remains damp directly after printing, and this can mark the surface unexpectedly.
Things that happen during the finishing process to create waste;
• If the fabric is printed using reactive dye, and it is steamed, there can occasionally be moisture marks, small or repeated drips can happen in the steaming chamber affecting the print before it is fixed.
• There are times when the steam quality is uneven; perhaps due to an unusual substrate being used.
• There are times when the finished print quality is impacted by the pretreatment application being uneven. This is best described as ‘like invisible ink’. The pretreatment is uncoloured and therefore when it is applied, we can’t see it. When the steam process occurs, it lifts the colour of the dye and reveals any imperfections.
• Only very occasionally we will find difficulties occurring during the final washing and pressing process. When these happen, they might relate to creasing or bleeding. We’ve even had accidental tears and holes appearing.
We’ve invited our clients for whom we hold waste, faulty or flawed prints to choose how they would like these items to be re-purposed.
They have been offered the following options;
1. Return printed fabric to the client for the nominal
2. Hold a ‘designer seconds’ sale for which you will receive a percentage cut.
3. Sign off the fabric to CANarts, CIRCULAR ARTS NETWORK is a circular economy tool and community created to support the arts.
4. Donate/sign off permission for the fabric to be used in student projects at Glasgow School of Art.
5. Seek an industrial textile recycling option - GSA is in discussion with its commercial recycling partner ENVA to establish transparency and traceability for clients (i.e., what happens to your textiles?)
6. Use as adjoining/scrap material for our finishing processes (this means it is repeatedly used in our industrial production finishing machinery as a functional part of the process; over time the fabric is re-steamed, re-washed, cut, sewn and rough handled)
7. Discard in landfill
We are keen to avoid discarding fabrics into landfill and see this as a last option.
The success of our sustainability drive so far indicates there is an appetite amongst commercial clients to minimise waste and a generosity to donate printed designs provided the end use fits their ethical perspective and appropriate credit for the act of donation is given.
