Category: News

Many commercial laundries already provide services to the NHS as well as private health, social care and other care based industries, and are set up to meet the high standards of hygiene these sectors require as well as meet demand. The commercial laundry industry currently processes and delivers up to 75 million pieces a week and at the peak of the pandemic, the demand for gowns would have been 3 million per week.

While the Covid 19 pandemic was an unprecedented challenge to the UK, it did reveal potential improvements that could be made for infrastructure and support to ensure that the response to future events is smoother and more efficient, and the TSA’s statement clearly shows that opportunities were missed by the government at the time.

“The commercial laundry sector is vital to the smooth running of the NHS and has been for many years,” says David. “We need to learn from the events of 2020, to ensure that the responses are lead by evidence and make full use of the capabilities of the UK’s commercial laundry sector,”

“Our statement to the inquiry demonstrates that our industry has the capability to ensure that PPE can be reused, helping to create a more resilient system during times of crisis – and saving hundreds of millions pounds worth of public money, as well as reducing carbon emissions. We could be “pandemic ready” in a matter of weeks should the need arise again”

The TSA alongside their members, are willing to drive the expansion of the existing reusable gown solution forward with the right support and commitment as it will not only assist the UK in being pandemic ready by solving supply issues for healthcare frontline workers on a long-term basis, but it will also deliver environmental and commercial benefits.

The TSA statement was made as part of Module 5 of the inquiry, which related to issues surrounding procurement. It can be read in full on the inquiry’s website.

The Fashion and Textile Children’s Trust provides financial grants to support the children of UK families who work or have worked in the textile industries. By funding the essential and specialist items children whose families have fallen on hard times need, from school uniforms to specialist equipment, they strive to improve their wellbeing during challenging times.  For more information on the charity visit ftct.org.uk

If you have any questions about joining the league, contact tsa@tsa-uk.org

“We’re urging healthcare providers and policymakers to reassess this guidance and explore safer alternatives, such as on-site commercial-grade machines or outsourced professional laundry services. These machines are specifically designed to meet healthcare hygiene standards and consistently reach the high temperatures required to safely decontaminate clothing. Whilst washing uniforms at home might seem convenient, it’s imperative that we rethink how we launder our healthcare workers’ uniforms to ensure patient safety, staff wellbeing, and basic infection control across the NHS.”

David Stevens, CEO at Textile Services Association (TSA), added: “For healthcare and care home managers, these findings are a clear call to action. Commercial laundry, such as bed linen and patient linen, is already outsourced at hospitals, yet we’re putting the onus on nurses to properly disinfect their own uniforms. With limited uniforms provided, this not only adds time pressures but also shifts the financial burden of washing at 60°C onto key workers.”

To find out more information, the full research paper can be found here.

A key area for discussion was the increasing interest hotels have in laundries’ carbon emission figures – so much so that they are now included in most tender processes.  TSA worked with Green Element to launch the GLARE platform for laundries, which makes the process of uploading the data to calculate the carbon figures relatively simple.  Hotels particularly liked that fact that even data ‘per hotel customer’ can be provided to them.  The meeting heard that the GLARE platform will also be useful in determining if alternative fabrics are more environmentally friendly. 

Cotton traceability has been complex in the past, particularly for businesses looking at more sustainable options. Hannah MacVean told the meeting that BCI is developing ways to trace cotton not only back to the country of origin, but directly to the farm, so users have insight and assurance over the provenance of the cotton. This will also enable the end user to know if BCI cotton is present within the product, which could not be guaranteed previously. David Stevens says, “We all agreed on the need to support farmers from an environmental and social aspect. TSA and BCI are working together to develop a viable solution.”
The meeting also had an update on the Infinite Textiles scheme, including the TSA discussions with DEFRA about the fact that there are no end-of-life recycling facilities for textiles in the UK capable of meeting the association’s criteria and supply. Meanwhile, with 61% of hospitality linen being lost every year, the TSA has been campaigning on training staff to look after it, notably with the highly successful Pasha the Pillowcase animation. The figures are improving, but are still dire. At the meeting, UKH and the TSA agreed to talk again to the UKHA (the UK Housekeepers Association) to work out a joint plan of action to continue the campaign.

The next UKH and TSA roundtable meeting will be on 16th September at the Hampton By Hilton, London, SE1 8XA. It will be attended by representatives from both laundries and hotels.

“Being on the leading edge of research efforts like this is hugely important for our members and the industry as a whole,” says David Stevens, CEO of the TSA. “It also allows us to work more closely with both machinery and chemical supply partners, with proven science taking the lead, ensuring genuine and mutually beneficial collaboration.”

The TSA is planning an Information Day which will give attendees comprehensive information about the importance of this research, highlighting the challenges posed by biofilms to the industry. The day will include presentations from Simon Fry Chair of Micronclean, Professor Katie Laird and Dr Ray Allan from DMU, and representatives from NBIC and the Biofilm Alliance. Following the event a steering group will be appointed to drive the project for the benefit of the global laundry industry.

The Information Day will take place on the 23^rd July 2025 between 10.30am and 3pm at the Leicester Marriot Hotel. Anyone interested in attending should contact the TSA.

This was directly addressed during Congress in a panel named “What should we do with the Hatch report?”. Joining Tim Fanning for this were Lucy Renaut (director, Fishers), Mark Franklin (CEO, Elis UK) and Kevin Godley (CEO, CLEAN). During their discussion Fanning encouraged the audience to use the report to reinforce to both their employee and customer bases how important the textile services industry is to the UK’s national economy.

“There may be larger sectors with greater economic footprints, but few have the sheer connectivity of ours and they in turn would grind to a halt without our services,” says Emma.

The TSA will continue to commission Hatch reports every three years moving forward.

The Hatch research, ‘The Economic Value of the Textile Services Sector to the UK Economy,’ 2025 edition, is available to download at tsa-uk.org, from the TSA publications section in the documents library.

The TSA is the trade association for the textile care services industry. The TSA represents commercial laundry and textile rental businesses. Membership ranges from family-run operations through to large, multi-national companies.  Visit www.tsa-uk.org for more information. 

Our recently launched GLARE platform embodies both principles of collaboration and data. The platform helps our members know what data they need to collect to understand the carbon emissions of their business, and how these compare with the sector at large. Each Scope from 1-3 is covered, so members can see what aspects of their operation fall into which Scope. GLARE also offers guidance on where to look to find the data and how to record it, too, through shared data platforms, helper tools, and the support network managed by the TSA. It is a resource that the majority of our members will now be using, from big corporations to smaller scale operations, GLARE creates a level playing field in terms of the results, reducing the risk of miss-reporting.

GLARE will also give our members an opportunity to discuss their findings, which we hope will lead to greater collaboration. The platform is also being rolled out to other national associations, with the vision that GLARE will be seen as the go to platform for the commercial laundry sector globally. As Benita told the conference, “the challenges we face in the future require us to work together.” It’s up to our members what they chose to share, but at the very least we should see patterns emerging. Recognising that common ground is surely a positive step towards tackling the challenges we all face.

Looking beyond GLARE, commercial laundries have been at the forefront of creating the circular economy. Our Infinite Textiles scheme is built on this principle. When we started this it was all about recycling, an end to end certification process. We then realised the industry had a lot of gaps in terms of managing assets in the beginning. Now we’re looking at that scheme to include all the supply chain both up and down stream.  That said, while bed linen is relatively straightforward to recycle, clothing with zips and surgical textiles, for example, is far more difficult. The technology to do this is out there, but there’s no industrial scale recycling in the UK. Switzerland has committed to create a National Recycling Department but as it stands, the bulk of the UK industry’s recycling is sent overseas. Clearly we need something that can make recycling textiles scalable here too, a topic the TSA is discussing with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Lobbying with government is a slow process, but it’s a vital part of what we do on behalf of our members and the industry at large. Thankfully, the message is getting heard. The UK government has put together a circular economy task force, and in a recent report both the TSA and our Infinite Textiles scheme were highlighted*. The collaboration between our industry and the government could fundamentally change the recycling process for textiles, both nationally and beyond.

Since 2012 the commercial laundry industry has reduced energy use overall by 30%.  While we’re making progress, the reality is that the industry currently burns 2.89TWh of energy a year. That is enough energy to power up Liverpool, Oxford and Cambridge. We have to keep pushing a greener agenda. Another key sustainability factor is increased electrification in commercial laundry facilities, which could be a gamechanger. Providing our members with more environment focused events, like the Sustainability Open Day, is part of this. Training the sector about Scope 3 emissions within the supply chain is another incentive in introducing GLARE.

The TSA will continue to be a catalyst to encourage sustainability. Over 80% of our members have already signed up to GLARE, and many of our industry events, from the Sustainability Open Day to the Autumn Conference, regularly sell out. All this underlines our members’ commitment to work together and keep reducing our energy and overall carbon footprint. It’s a long journey, but we’re moving in an encouraging direction.

The next important step in the journey will be the meeting between the TSA and representatives of UK Hospitality scheduled for June 25^th 2025. This will aim to bring the sustainability programs of the two sectors into alignment, ensuring that they are complementing each other.