Observed barriers in establishing the partnership
| Categories and Sub-categories | Barriers by actor group | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Economic | ||
| A. Dominance of economic indicators in decision making | NPOs | Cost-driven decision-making and its priority over environmental concerns |
| “The talks … about environmental protection and … circular economy … are not reflected in practice if it is cheaper to do activities that do not take the environment into account,” MC | ||
| B. Scarcity of raw material, assets or infrastructure | Municipal and private companies | (a) Lack of investments to scale up from project to commercial level of operations |
| “The other challenge is investments to scale from project-based to commercial level especially in [terms of] the recycling approaches,” PP(b) Sufficient quantity of textiles required for the textile processing line | ||
| “The textile recycling plant would not just be for Finland, but Sweden and Norway, in order to get a bigger inflow of textile and keep profitable business,” NPO 1(c) Lack of infrastructure such as warehousing facilities | ||
| “We do not have problems with low volumes. We have problems with space,” WMC 1 | ||
| C. High logistics costs (NEW) | All actor groups | Expensive logistics, collection and sorting of post-use textiles |
| “Major challenges today...are the costs of the professional collection and sorting of used textile,” PP | ||
| D. Market for products from recycled post-use textiles (NEW) | Private companies | Lack of market for products and materials made from recycled textiles |
| “Many challenges and question marks. It's a lot of hard work … to build the value chain, especially towards the outbound sales,” TSC | ||
| 2. Social | ||
| A. Lacking awareness of textile valorization | Municipal and private companies | Lacking awareness of the textile recycling industry needs, challenges and opportunities among various stakeholders |
| “… a very realistic picture about the current situation - we know so little about textile recycling,” PP | ||
| B. Lacking or uncertain customer needs | Private companies | Lack of understanding of customers' technical requirements for post-use textiles as raw material for further recycling |
| “We want to understand, how the raw material from the post-consumer waste should look like,” PP | ||
| C. Mindset (NEW) | Municipal and private companies | A need for a different mindset in managing post-use textiles compared to other waste fractions |
| “The challenges have come as a surprise, as the collection of waste textiles requires a rather different mindset than other waste fractions,” PP | ||
| 3. Institutional | ||
| Complexity in legislation mechanisms and terminology (NEW) | Municipal companies and NPOs | Complexity in legislation mechanisms for partnership |
| “We cannot take textiles straight from NPOs. It is silly because the textile stream is exactly the same. When a person decides to put it in NPOs collection, then it is [legally] a company waste, not household waste anymore. That is why we [WMC] cannot take it,” WMC 1 | ||
| 4. Technological and informational | ||
| A. Increased technical difficulty in handling reverse material flows | Municipal and private companies Municipal and private companies | (a) Complexity of post-use textile as raw material |
| “Post-consumer textile is a big blend of materials, chemicals and before we can recycle these goods to yarn, we have to identify fibers and chemicals, to remove all trims,” PP(b) Inconsistency in quality and quantity of post-use textile inflow | ||
| “We try to avoid situations where everybody sends us too many textiles this month and next month – do not send at all, to make sure we have a stable flow,” WMC 1 | ||
| B. Lack of compatible technologies and high technological uncertainty | Municipal and private companies | Lack of technological readiness for commercial scale, e.g. for fiber detection |
| “If you would like to get higher quality [of raw material] you have to implement some technology or procedure. Today, it has not been implemented yet, just on the project base,” PP | ||
| C. Lack of practices and systems for collecting, sharing and utilizing CE information | All actor groups | An information gap between various stakeholders |
| “Those companies, which would like to use [recycled] material, are not sure where to get these materials,” RI 2 | ||
| 5. Supply chain | ||
| A. Conflict of interest, values and modes of operation between different stakeholders | NPOs | (a) Mismatching goals of different actors |
| “The municipal waste collection companies…are ready that the NPOs would help them to collect end-of life textiles, those that cannot be used as clothes and pick for themselves only the reusable clothes,” RI 2 | ||
| “It was suggested that the charitable organizations…would also start separating textile waste in their sorting centres. As donors have been told for the last 30 years to donate only reusable clothing, it would confuse things and rise up significantly our sorting costs,” NPO 2 | ||
| “We are trying to change their system, so they do collaboration with us and not sending textiles away from the country,” WMC 1(b) Instability of the NPOs' position threatened by new operators | ||
| “Charities have good channels for clothes that they receive; in that sense they are quite safe for a while. If big operators are coming, which establish own value chains, they might be able in the future to push charity organizations from the field,” RI 1 | ||
| B. Growing demand for visibility and transparency (NEW) | NPOs and WM companies | Difficulties in achieving transparency for the entire reverse supply chain “We really want to show what is happening with the textiles,” WMC 1 |
| 6. Organizational | ||
| Conflicts with existing business culture and increased management difficulty | NPOs Municipal companies and NPOs | (a) Fear of risks related to changing an existing mode of operation |
| “It would confuse things and raise up our sorting costs,” NPO 2(b) Differences in interpretation of the legislation mechanisms and definitions between the stakeholders | ||
| “With the term ‘discarded textiles’ [translation from Finnish] we wanted to emphasize that it is not waste, but it contains textiles to be reused as clothes or material,” WMC 1 | ||
| “We need only “discarded textiles” [translation from Finnish] – so it is waste. Reusable again [as clothes] – should not be there,” WMC 2 | ||
| Categories and Sub-categories | Barriers by actor group | |
|---|---|---|
| A. Dominance of economic indicators in decision making | NPOs | Cost-driven decision-making and its priority over environmental concerns |
| “The talks … about environmental protection and … circular economy … are not reflected in practice if it is cheaper to do activities that do not take the environment into account,” MC | ||
| B. Scarcity of raw material, assets or infrastructure | Municipal and private companies | (a) Lack of investments to scale up from project to commercial level of operations |
| “The other challenge is investments to scale from project-based to commercial level especially in [terms of] the recycling approaches,” PP(b) Sufficient quantity of textiles required for the textile processing line | ||
| “The textile recycling plant would not just be for Finland, but Sweden and Norway, in order to get a bigger inflow of textile and keep profitable business,” NPO 1(c) Lack of infrastructure such as warehousing facilities | ||
| “We do not have problems with low volumes. We have problems with space,” WMC 1 | ||
| C. High logistics costs (NEW) | All actor groups | Expensive logistics, collection and sorting of post-use textiles |
| “Major challenges today...are the costs of the professional collection and sorting of used textile,” PP | ||
| D. Market for products from recycled post-use textiles (NEW) | Private companies | Lack of market for products and materials made from recycled textiles |
| “Many challenges and question marks. It's a lot of hard work … to build the value chain, especially towards the outbound sales,” TSC | ||
| A. Lacking awareness of textile valorization | Municipal and private companies | Lacking awareness of the textile recycling industry needs, challenges and opportunities among various stakeholders |
| “… a very realistic picture about the current situation - we know so little about textile recycling,” PP | ||
| B. Lacking or uncertain customer needs | Private companies | Lack of understanding of customers' technical requirements for post-use textiles as raw material for further recycling |
| “We want to understand, how the raw material from the post-consumer waste should look like,” PP | ||
| C. Mindset (NEW) | Municipal and private companies | A need for a different mindset in managing post-use textiles compared to other waste fractions |
| “The challenges have come as a surprise, as the collection of waste textiles requires a rather different mindset than other waste fractions,” PP | ||
| Complexity in legislation mechanisms and terminology (NEW) | Municipal companies and NPOs | Complexity in legislation mechanisms for partnership |
| “We cannot take textiles straight from NPOs. It is silly because the textile stream is exactly the same. When a person decides to put it in NPOs collection, then it is [legally] a company waste, not household waste anymore. That is why we [WMC] cannot take it,” WMC 1 | ||
| A. Increased technical difficulty in handling reverse material flows | Municipal and private companies | (a) Complexity of post-use textile as raw material |
| “Post-consumer textile is a big blend of materials, chemicals and before we can recycle these goods to yarn, we have to identify fibers and chemicals, to remove all trims,” PP(b) Inconsistency in quality and quantity of post-use textile inflow | ||
| “We try to avoid situations where everybody sends us too many textiles this month and next month – do not send at all, to make sure we have a stable flow,” WMC 1 | ||
| B. Lack of compatible technologies and high technological uncertainty | Municipal and private companies | Lack of technological readiness for commercial scale, e.g. for fiber detection |
| “If you would like to get higher quality [of raw material] you have to implement some technology or procedure. Today, it has not been implemented yet, just on the project base,” PP | ||
| C. Lack of practices and systems for collecting, sharing and utilizing CE information | All actor groups | An information gap between various stakeholders |
| “Those companies, which would like to use [recycled] material, are not sure where to get these materials,” RI 2 | ||
| A. Conflict of interest, values and modes of operation between different stakeholders | NPOs | (a) Mismatching goals of different actors |
| “The municipal waste collection companies…are ready that the NPOs would help them to collect end-of life textiles, those that cannot be used as clothes and pick for themselves only the reusable clothes,” RI 2 | ||
| “It was suggested that the charitable organizations…would also start separating textile waste in their sorting centres. As donors have been told for the last 30 years to donate only reusable clothing, it would confuse things and rise up significantly our sorting costs,” NPO 2 | ||
| “We are trying to change their system, so they do collaboration with us and not sending textiles away from the country,” WMC 1(b) Instability of the NPOs' position threatened by new operators | ||
| “Charities have good channels for clothes that they receive; in that sense they are quite safe for a while. If big operators are coming, which establish own value chains, they might be able in the future to push charity organizations from the field,” RI 1 | ||
| B. Growing demand for visibility and transparency (NEW) | NPOs and WM companies | Difficulties in achieving transparency for the entire reverse supply chain |
| Conflicts with existing business culture and increased management difficulty | NPOs | (a) Fear of risks related to changing an existing mode of operation |
| “It would confuse things and raise up our sorting costs,” NPO 2(b) Differences in interpretation of the legislation mechanisms and definitions between the stakeholders | ||
| “With the term ‘discarded textiles’ [translation from Finnish] we wanted to emphasize that it is not waste, but it contains textiles to be reused as clothes or material,” WMC 1 | ||
| “We need only “discarded textiles” [translation from Finnish] – so it is waste. Reusable again [as clothes] – should not be there,” WMC 2 | ||
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