Work is currently under way in Southwest Finland that will enable large-scale recycling of end-of-life textiles for the first time in the country. The project brings together various funders, city councils, waste management companies and universities, and aims to pave the way for a new and profitable textile industry. Systematic collection and sorting of textile waste began in early 2016 and processing facilities have been opened in which the use of promising new recycling technologies are being piloted.
Change through extensive collaboration
Despite the final disposal of organic waste now being illegal, most end-of-life textiles still end up being incinerated for energy (56%) rather than being reused (30%) or recycled (14%). To combat this, a year-long Finnish end-of-life textile project with an investment of €120,000 began in early 2016. The project is led by Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) and Southwest Finland Waste Management Ltd in collaboration with SITRA (the Finnish Innovation Fund), the city of Turku, Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation), a Nordic circular economy company Ekokem and the Finnish Solid Waste Association.
Turku City Council has proposed the Topinpuisto area as a potential pilot site where various waste types can be processed. This area also has the potential to become an industrial logistics and pretreatment centre capable of receiving an international supply of end-of-life textiles. Sorted and possibly pretreated textiles could be forwarded for various utilisation purposes, chemical recycling or incineration.
Plans and investigations
The textile recycling program is part of a 10-year (2015–2025), €40m investment programme in the circular economy from the Finnish Government. The project shows considerable promise, although it is still in its early days. Collection of end-of-life textiles has started and the project team (led by TUAS and LSJH) has begun to gather data on the qualities and usability of different textile materials, as well as the total volume of textiles received. This will inform an understanding of the proportion of textiles that can be resold as they are, those that can be turned into new products, and those that are unusable. It is unclear at this point to what extent this sorting process can be automated in the future. Machines can recognise different materials but humans are needed to spot value and condition variation within specific textile types. Factors such as these will have an impact on the long-term economic viability of project activities.
Spotlight on: The Infinited Fiber Company
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The recently established Finnish “Infinited Fiber Company” turns cotton waste into new fibres for the textile industry. This new chemical recycling process (Ioncell-F) was developed by researchers from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd and Aalto University, and enables the manufacture of high-quality fibre from dissolved cotton-rich textile waste, viscose, wood and other materials with high cellulose content. This process runs without carbon disulphide (a notorious neurotoxin used by some methods) or other dangerous substances, and more than halves the water and energy needed for producing cotton clothing with unrecycled cotton. There is no limit to the number of times fibres can be recycled using this process. Ioncell-F has recently received international acclaim after winning the Global Change Award of the H&M Conscious Foundation and receiving €300,000. The company is also one of the nominees for the best Nordic Cleantech Startup in 2016.
In 2016, the Infinited Fiber Company aims to produce 50,000 kg of new fibre with Ioncell-F at a pilot plant in Valkeakoski. The company hopes to collaborate with textile collecting agents in Southwest Finland and also with leading textile brands.
Regional dimension
Textile collection and sorting has created low-threshold workplaces and useful information is being gathered for future uses. However, the long-term economic viability of the project’s business models needs to be determined before the regional implications of this work can be fully understood. The hope is that in the near future clothing will circulate like glass, metals and biowaste. If this is achieved, Southwest Finland has a unique opportunity to be at the forefront in creating a completely new line of business involving products made from recycled textiles. Such innovation has the potential to revive the Finnish textile industry and make a substantial contribution to the regional, and even national, economy.
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