A new sustainable clothing movement is gaining momentum in Europe and beyond, says Siptex’s Anna Vilen.
A WHOLE new movement of creating circular fashion has been gradually gaining momentum in Europe and elsewhere, as people become more aware of the need for sustaining the Earth.
Circular fashion is based on the main principles of circular economy and sustainable development. It relates to the fashion industry in a wider sense, and concerns the entire life-cycle of a product, from design and sourcing, to production, transportation, storage, marketing and sale, as well as the user phase and the products’ end of life, says Anna Vilen, head of communication at Siptex.
The plant is operated by Sysav, a not-for-profit company owned by the local authorities in Malmo, a coastal city in southern Sweden. It is the world’s first large-scale facility of its kind. It sorts textiles by colour and fibre composition using near infrared light, making it possible to handle large flows and produce textile fractions adapted to different recycling processes.
Siptex, which stands for Swedish Innovation Platform for Textile Sorting, is the result of collaboration between Swedish textile and fashion companies, research institutes and authorities, including IVL, Stadium, H&M, Ikea, Stadium, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Re:newcell and Myrorna. The facility is located in Malmo, which is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.
Circular fashion can be defined as clothes, shoes or accessories that are designed, sourced, produced, and provided with the intention of being used and circulated responsibly and effectively in society for as long as possible in their most valuable form, and hereafter return safely to the biosphere when no longer of human use, Vilen highlights, quoting from Anna Brismar’s 2017 work Green Strategy.
Dress for success
The concept of circular fashion and its green strategy comes originally from Sweden, Vilen tells The Business Times (BT) in an e-mail interview. Her company has been driving campaigns on sustainable consumer behaviour for textiles for many years.
“We were the company launching the campaign ‘4-fit-challenge’ … in 2015. The challenge was to choose 4 items in your wardrobe and use them only for a week (excluding underwear, socks and sportswear). The campaign was a success, and Sysav was suddenly in focus in both national and international media; it also got international attention from decision-makers,” she tells BT.
Siptex was launched in 2018 and, by 2020, had a full-scale facility in place. It now provides customers with material for fibre-to-fibre recycling for creating a sustainable life-cycle of textiles.
There had been a bottleneck for being able to scale recycling operations – fibre-to-fibre processes have purity standards for feedstock in order for the processes to work. One such example is 95 per cent cotton, Vilen points out. “And for the bigger investments in recycling to take place, you need to know that there are steady, large volumes of raw material available,” she adds.
“I have always been interested in fashion … But as my knowledge about the industry’s heavy impact on climate grew, I couldn’t consume clothes the way I used to. I believe that fashion can stay fun and creative – it really is a form of art – but the system needs to change. The fast-fashion business model, with massive amounts of poor-quality clothing, has to end, and we must find smarter ways to consume.”
The business she works for, Sysav, is a resource and waste management company aiming to create one of the world’s most sustainable regions.
“This means that we need to be innovative and be in the forefront always, and for all materials and products. We receive and treat waste to be reused, recycled or treated as rest products for energy recovery and disposal. All material that enters the company is seen as a resource, even if others think of it as waste,” Vilen tells BT.
“What’s unique with Sysav is that we are owned by the local authorities and are a not-for-profit company. This means that we can try new solutions more easily than private companies can and will do.”
Every year, she notes, more than 100 million tonnes of textiles are produced, with only a fraction of it being recycled. The rest is incinerated or landfilled which contributes to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“Add to this that in 2050, there will be more than 10 billion people on the earth and the need for new textile fibres is expected to increase by 150 per cent by 2050. Most of the textile fibres available today are synthetic fibres of fossil origin or water-intensive cotton. There is no room for growing more cotton in the future. All arable land will be needed for food production,” she tells BT.
On the right track
There are many things that must change regarding textiles and its value chain. For instance, there is a need for standardisation of fabrics and methods for production to get truly sustainable and recyclable goods. Consumer behaviour must also change – we need to buy more sustainable products, and use them for longer. There is also a need for legislation that supports circular fashion on all levels. And this comes with a price.
“The fact that we get so much attention to our campaigns and the sorting facility must mean that we are on the right track! More and more people are for sure interested in sustainable fashion, though it is still not easy to know if you choose correctly or not. It must be (made) easier to make the right choices going forward,” says Vilen.
How can investment be promoted for recycling to take place on a bigger scale in her country and globally?
“Investments are closely interlinked to the after-market for recycled goods. We mean that prices for virgin material must increase, so it is cheaper to use recycled materials. If so, there will be more companies interested in fibre recycling and the demand for the fibre increases,” she says.
“As an example, it is not reasonable to buy a T-shirt for 5 euros (S$7.07) and believe that all people (involved in its production) have been paid for their work. Somewhere, the value chain is broken – and it must be fixed.”