10069430Development of 100% textile waste handmade artists paperClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKOur project is to develop a range of artists papers made from 100% textile waste. By combining our deep understanding of the craft of papermaking by hand with the latest fibre processing machinery, we will create a series of papers that are both more sustainable and of superior quality to anything currently available on the market. This will create a new way to sustainably recycle textile waste direct from rag. The most popular form of textile recycling currently is fibre to fibre recycling which involves chemically intensive processing to turn the fibres into cotton pulp ready for reuse. By working directly from rags, we avoid this step entirely. We have developed this process already at lab scale, creating papers made from linen, cotton and denim textile waste. Rags were the predominant papermaking fibre used for centuries, right up until the industrialisation of the process in the 19th century. By refining this process for the 21st century, we hope to offer an alternative papermaking fibre to virgin cotton pulp, the most popular fibre for use in premium papers, and which uses vast amounts of water and agrochemicals in its production.