Observed drivers in establishing the partnership
| Categories and sub-categories | Drivers by actor groups | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Environmental | ||
| Global trend to minimize negative environmental impact | All actor groups | Minimization of the environmental impact of post-use textile export |
| “From the environmental point of view, it is more beneficial to burn textile for energy in a low-emission, local power plant than to transport it somewhere else with the emissions at the end of the journey,” MC | ||
| 2. Economic | ||
| A. Potential to create value from waste | All actor groups NPOS | (a) Uncaptured value of post-use textiles in solid mixed waste and pre-sorted disqualified textiles from NPOs |
| “We have to do something because we figured out that in our mixed waste are textiles which have value,” WMC 1 | ||
| “NPOs check them all –there is no spoiled material left that can ruin the recycling process. If someone has done sorting work, it should be considered,” RI 2(b) Established models and leadership of NPOs for reusable textile business | ||
| “I think there is a place for NPOs in the ecosystem, because other organizations cannot sell these reusable clothes as charities do – they simply do not have any channels for that,” RI 1 | ||
| B. Potential for new business development | Municipal and private companies | Potential for economic viability of sustainable solutions |
| “I think we need to have it as a business for somebody in order for it to be viable. It is a very important thing,” RI 1 | ||
| “We really have to find a commercial way of doing it … of course, WMC has to do it too but … they have tax financing behind them and governmental support. From our point of view, we have to be market-driven,” TSC | ||
| 3. Social | ||
| A. Increasing awareness of sustainability needs | NPOs Municipal and private companies | (a) Impact of charitable background on collection of reusable textiles |
| “In-store collection brings clothes of higher quality because people are more committed to the charitable causes of our operations. The official targets are to grow fundraising and upcycle people who start their career as our employees,” NPO 1(b) Shared understanding of “being in the same boat” and development challenges and opportunities of textile valorization | ||
| “It is important to speak about the recycling industry and to understand what the needs are, what is going on with this part of the value chain,” PP | ||
| B. Societal development projects | Municipal and private companies | Joint projects for future development direction, information sharing and cooperation between the actors |
| “We could get ideas from plastic processing roadmap… The companies evaluated the process saying it created a good spirit of cooperation,” RI 2 | ||
| 4. Institutional | ||
| A. Directing laws and EU regulations create a demand for new solutions | WM companies WM and private companies | (a) EU directive bringing new actors for textile valorization |
| “Separate textile waste collection to be launched in Finland in 2023. New operators will have to come and deal with that waste fraction,” RI 1(b) EU directive on separate textile collection stabilizing the inflow of post-use textiles | ||
| “The amount of incoming waste is not a problem. Especially if we think of the CE path of the EU and new regulations, which emphasize separate textile collection across the member states of the EU. We will see the amount of collected textile growing,” PP | ||
| B. Engagement of higher-level stakeholders (NEW) | WM companies | Engagement of higher-level stakeholders (government, ministry) positively impacting the research and development projects |
| “They have gotten stakeholders from the higher level interested in the issue of plastic waste. So politically it was on a much higher level,” RI 1 | ||
| 5. Technological and informational | ||
| A. Emerging process technologies | Private companies | New fiber identifying technologies for detecting the fibre blends in post-use textiles |
| “With the optical identification technology being developed, identification reliability of the fibrous materials contained in textiles will be improved,” PP | ||
| B. Sharing information and instructing stakeholders | WM companies and NPOs | Instructing and teaching both industry stakeholders and consumers about post-use textile collection and sorting |
| “A very good level of consumer sorting would be that there are only textiles in the collection bin, so they do not put anything else,” WMC 1 | ||
| 6. Supply chain | ||
| Increased availability of knowledge and technological resources through collaboration | Municipal and private companies | (a) Active collaboration for knowledge sharing and joint resources |
| “Partnership is important with universities, scientists and research companies because of their know-how and opportunity to invest in the research projects,” PP | ||
| “Hard to say if NPOs would lose some of textiles … We do collaboration with NPOs and we hope we can create a strong message together to consumers,” WMC 1(b) Knowledge and experience of NPOs in sorting post-use textiles | ||
| “I think NPOs have done this for a very long time, organization X has collected last year about 15 million tons. It is about 3 kg of clothes per each Finnish citizen,” RI 1 | ||
| 7. Organizational | ||
| Changed organizational structure, strategy and culture to support CE | WM and private companies | Shared vision in terms of the nature, goals and targets of textile valorization |
| “One big target is to close the loop … not the goal to produce more, but to be more efficient and aim at higher quality yarn,” PP | ||
| Categories and sub-categories | Drivers by actor groups | |
|---|---|---|
| Global trend to minimize negative environmental impact | All actor groups | Minimization of the environmental impact of post-use textile export |
| “From the environmental point of view, it is more beneficial to burn textile for energy in a low-emission, local power plant than to transport it somewhere else with the emissions at the end of the journey,” MC | ||
| A. Potential to create value from waste | All actor groups | (a) Uncaptured value of post-use textiles in solid mixed waste and pre-sorted disqualified textiles from NPOs |
| “We have to do something because we figured out that in our mixed waste are textiles which have value,” WMC 1 | ||
| “NPOs check them all –there is no spoiled material left that can ruin the recycling process. If someone has done sorting work, it should be considered,” RI 2(b) Established models and leadership of NPOs for reusable textile business | ||
| “I think there is a place for NPOs in the ecosystem, because other organizations cannot sell these reusable clothes as charities do – they simply do not have any channels for that,” RI 1 | ||
| B. Potential for new business development | Municipal and private companies | Potential for economic viability of sustainable solutions |
| “I think we need to have it as a business for somebody in order for it to be viable. It is a very important thing,” RI 1 | ||
| “We really have to find a commercial way of doing it … of course, WMC has to do it too but … they have tax financing behind them and governmental support. From our point of view, we have to be market-driven,” TSC | ||
| A. Increasing awareness of sustainability needs | NPOs | (a) Impact of charitable background on collection of reusable textiles |
| “In-store collection brings clothes of higher quality because people are more committed to the charitable causes of our operations. The official targets are to grow fundraising and upcycle people who start their career as our employees,” NPO 1(b) Shared understanding of “being in the same boat” and development challenges and opportunities of textile valorization | ||
| “It is important to speak about the recycling industry and to understand what the needs are, what is going on with this part of the value chain,” PP | ||
| B. Societal development projects | Municipal and private companies | Joint projects for future development direction, information sharing and cooperation between the actors |
| “We could get ideas from plastic processing roadmap… The companies evaluated the process saying it created a good spirit of cooperation,” RI 2 | ||
| A. Directing laws and EU regulations create a demand for new solutions | WM companies | (a) EU directive bringing new actors for textile valorization |
| “Separate textile waste collection to be launched in Finland in 2023. New operators will have to come and deal with that waste fraction,” RI 1(b) EU directive on separate textile collection stabilizing the inflow of post-use textiles | ||
| “The amount of incoming waste is not a problem. Especially if we think of the CE path of the EU and new regulations, which emphasize separate textile collection across the member states of the EU. We will see the amount of collected textile growing,” PP | ||
| B. Engagement of higher-level stakeholders (NEW) | WM companies | Engagement of higher-level stakeholders (government, ministry) positively impacting the research and development projects |
| “They have gotten stakeholders from the higher level interested in the issue of plastic waste. So politically it was on a much higher level,” RI 1 | ||
| A. Emerging process technologies | Private companies | New fiber identifying technologies for detecting the fibre blends in post-use textiles |
| “With the optical identification technology being developed, identification reliability of the fibrous materials contained in textiles will be improved,” PP | ||
| B. Sharing information and instructing stakeholders | WM companies and NPOs | Instructing and teaching both industry stakeholders and consumers about post-use textile collection and sorting |
| “A very good level of consumer sorting would be that there are only textiles in the collection bin, so they do not put anything else,” WMC 1 | ||
| Increased availability of knowledge and technological resources through collaboration | Municipal and private companies | (a) Active collaboration for knowledge sharing and joint resources |
| “Partnership is important with universities, scientists and research companies because of their know-how and opportunity to invest in the research projects,” PP | ||
| “Hard to say if NPOs would lose some of textiles … We do collaboration with NPOs and we hope we can create a strong message together to consumers,” WMC 1(b) Knowledge and experience of NPOs in sorting post-use textiles | ||
| “I think NPOs have done this for a very long time, organization X has collected last year about 15 million tons. It is about 3 kg of clothes per each Finnish citizen,” RI 1 | ||
| Changed organizational structure, strategy and culture to support CE | WM and private companies | Shared vision in terms of the nature, goals and targets of textile valorization |
| “One big target is to close the loop … not the goal to produce more, but to be more efficient and aim at higher quality yarn,” PP | ||
Sharing content requires targeting cookies to be enabled. Please update your cookie preferences to use this feature.