Dutch municipalities launch regional sorting center for textile processing

By

Shomara Roosblad

Published
Feb 2, 2018

The Dutch municipalities of Apeldoorn, Bronckhorst, Brummen, Deventer, Doesburg, Epe, Lochem and Zutphen have come to an agreement with Leger des Heils ReShare (Salvation Army) and employment agency Deventer Werktalent to set up a sorting center for textile processing in Deventer. Waste management company Circulus-Berkel will supervise the project.

With the initiative all the participating parties aim to have better control of the textile processing chain and create more employment opportunities in the region at the same time. The new center will provide approximately 25 workplaces and process non-wearable and wearable textiles, generating benefits for the environment and the people of the region.

Residents of the region that launched the project hand-in about 2.1 million kilos of textiles per year via textile containers. However, the majority of collected textiles in the region as well as other cities and towns in the Netherlands are then traded over the world. The Dutch municipalities and Circulus-Berkel now want the textile to become trace-able, in order to follow its reuse, in the pursuit of a circular economy.

In 2015, the eight participating municipalities launched the Clean Tech covenant, in which they agreed to collaborate on limiting the use of primary raw materials. According to the municipalities, the initiative already achieved good results for a number of raw materials such as paper and glass. They now aim to achieve the same with textiles.