Södra separates blends and colours in textiles recycling project
17/12/2021
Workwear from 89 of ICA’s stores are being sent to the OnceMore production line at Södra’s Mörrum pulp mill in southern Sweden and turned into raw material for as many as 28,000 new garments.
This company claims this is the first time that coloured workwear from blended materials will be recycled and used for new textile fibres on a commercial scale.
OnceMore business development manager Angeline Elfström said: “One of the biggest challenges in textile recycling is that fabric rarely consists of pure fibres. In the OnceMore process, we separate cotton and polyester from polycotton, one of the world's most widely-used textile types. The cellulose from the cotton fibres is then combined with cellulose from our sustainable, renewable wood sources. The result, after going through the entire value chain, is new quality textile based on recycled material.
“Until now, we have only been accepting white textiles to make OnceMore, mainly from the hotel industry in the form of towels and bed linen. This is the first time that we will recycle polyester/cotton blended workwear and the first time we can do so using coloured textiles. As far as we know, this is the first project of its kind on a large scale.”
Södra is Sweden’s largest forest-owner association, with 52,000 forest owners as its members.
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