Introducing Avena: A Zero-to-Landfill Future for Hotel Towels and Bed Linen

Star Linen is proud to introduce a new not-for-profit partnership with Avena, a secure, zero-to-landfill re-purposing service for end-of-first-life hotel towels and bed linen. It's the newest addition to the Star Way, sitting alongside our existing ReStart initiative for mattresses, pillows, toppers and duvets, and it closes an important gap in how the hospitality sector deals with textiles that have reached the end of their working life.

Why we're doing this

Every year, hotels replace thousands of towels and bed linen sets that are too worn for guest use but still have value once they're taken apart. Historically, most of this ends up in landfill. Through Avena, that textile is instead collected, deconstructed and re-manufactured into materials for the building industry, including insulation, geotextiles, carpet underlay, car insulation, furniture foam and sound attenuation products, giving it a second life instead of an ending.

How it works

• Onsite collection – hotels choose from four collector sizes (80L, 240L, 660L or 1100L) kept on site, or arrange ad hoc collections as needed.

• Secure, transparent transport – every collection is handled by vetted teams in GPS-tracked vehicles, with items barcode-scanned and tracked at every stage for full audit compliance.

• Re-purposing and re-manufacturing – collected towels and bed linen go to Avena's facility, where they're broken down and re-manufactured into new building-industry products.

• Certified audit trail – each participating hotel receives a Certificate of Deconstruction and a full audit trail, supporting Scope 3 emissions reporting and sustainability compliance.

• Verified environmental impact – carbon savings from avoiding landfill are quantified and verified by independent industry bodies, so the numbers stand up in your own ESG reporting.

Part of the Star Way

Avena joins ReStart (our existing not-for-profit initiative for mattresses, pillows, toppers and duvets, run with our partner The TFR Group) as the two pillars of Star Linen's approach to end-of-first-life textiles. Together, they mean hospitality operators have a genuine, audited, zero-to-landfill route for the vast majority of the soft furnishings they replace.

Where we are today

This is a brand-new scheme, so if your property is interested in being among the first to join, get in touch with Nigel Hallisey (National Sales Director) or Stephen Broadhurst (Managing Director) via star-linen.co.uk or 01443 80 50 50.