VANCOUVER, BC, July 15, 2025 /CNW/ - Debrand, a Metro Vancouver-based leader in textile sustainability and circularity logistics for top apparel and retail brands across North America, is proud to announce that it has received over $325,000 in funding from the CleanBC Plastics Action Fund, administered by the Province of British Columbia and Alacrity Canada through the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.
The grant will support Debrand's new research and development initiative focused on diverting plastic-based apparel and textiles that are currently deemed non-reusable—keeping them out of landfill and integrating them into the region's growing ecosystem of circular material solutions.
"Plastic-derived textiles contribute to a significant portion of today's fashion system, making up about 60% of the world's clothing. The industry has a responsibility to reduce its impact by extending the life of the materials that have already been extracted," said Amelia Eleiter, Co-Founder and CEO of Debrand. "This funding allows us to go deeper into understanding apparel's plastic waste stream here in B.C. and apply advanced sortation technology to better understand what's possible, so we can design smarter circular systems that valorize these materials, not waste them."
Debrand's initiative will leverage its automated sortation machinery and proprietary software to analyze plastic-based apparel and textiles currently in circulation. By sorting these garments with precision and identifying their material composition, the project aims to better understand the operational and economic requirements needed to prepare these items for appropriate reuse and recycling pathways.
As a pioneer in textile sustainability and next-life logistics, Debrand is addressing a major gap in North America's fashion industry: the lack of scalable infrastructure to manage end-of-life textiles. Despite growing consumer and regulatory pressure, most apparel today remains designed for disposability. At the current pace, the world is discarding a truckload of textiles every second—a figure that underscores how urgently we need systems-level solutions.
"Textiles are one of the leading sources of waste, with plastic-based materials such as polyester being more difficult to recycle than regular plastics," said Alacrity Canada. "Between this, and the growing trend of 'fast-fashion', we are facing an issue that is not easily solved. Luckily, Debrand is tackling this issue head on. They've implemented sustainable recycling practices and innovative initiatives to divert textiles from ending up in landfills; transforming how we think. Alacrity Canada is proud to support this project as it's creating a foundation for how we recycle textiles in a sustainable and environmentally focused approach."
With support from the CleanBC Plastics Action Fund, Debrand is helping to bridge this infrastructure gap by generating insights that can accelerate the development of regional and global circular ecosystems, ultimately diverting plastic-derived textiles from landfill and positioning them as feedstock for the innovations of tomorrow. This project is part of a broader mission at Debrand: to solve the world's textile waste problem by helping brands and organizations unlock higher-value solutions within their sustainability and circularity ecosystem, keeping products in circulation as many times and ways as possible. For more information, visit debrand.ca.
About Debrand
Debrand is North America's most comprehensive textile sustainability and circularity hub for top apparel and retail brands like lululemon, Everlane, Aritzia, Canada Goose, Target, and Eileen Fisher. Their holistic ecosystem approach for next-life logistics combines tech-enabled sortation with expert solution partnerships to deliver the highest impact possible at scale in reuse, recycling, responsible disposal, and circular textile innovations.
Based in Metro Vancouver with facilities across the United States, Debrand is on a mission to propel the textile industry's sustainable future, finding ways to optimize the planet's finite resources by unlocking the potential in untapped products. To learn more about their work and impact, visit debrand.ca.
SOURCE Debrand
Media contact: Melanie Mok, Director of Marketing and Communications, Debrand, [email protected]
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