A systemic shift is needed to reduce clothing mountains

Aftonbladet's high-profile review of collected textiles leaving Sweden leaves few unmoved, and the question many are asking is how it is possible that it can work like this. The answer is that there is currently no infrastructure for the management of used, discarded and waste textiles in Sweden.

The collection that takes place today often goes on to a manual sorting and evaluation process. For the textiles that are sorted, there are then many different possibilities for a second, third or fourth loop. These include various forms of reuse, repair, redesign or recycling, all of which extend the life of the garment or material as far as possible.

Using each garment as many times as possible is a vision that Wargön Innovation and many others are striving for. The fact that the situation looks like it does today, with textile flows whose values are not utilized, is often due to the fact that there is simply no functioning system where the products can be utilized and their value converted through, for example, reuse or redesign. A system change is needed and Wargön Innovation is one of the enablers.

When textile collection becomes a legal requirement in 2025, the amount of textiles collected from businesses and private individuals will increase. An infrastructure that can handle these large quantities needs to be in place, and for this to become a reality, major investments in the system are needed.

Today's manual sorting and valuation has already started to be complemented by various automated technologies that, for example, detect the material composition of a garment. With future technological developments and automation, the process will be scaled up and industrialized further. Work on developing these solutions is already underway at Wargön Innovation. By creating industrial sorting, we can help to keep the value of the goods high and also keep the material in Sweden to create a comprehensive supply of circular textile material.