Projects for more environmentally friendly fibres

Blend Re:winds metod föratt separera syntetfibrer och bomullfibreri blandmaterial.

The Swedish Forest Industries Federations member companies are participating in several development projects to meet the demand for more environmentally friendly fibres.

  • Finnish company Metsä has developed a dissolution process based its own chemical formula and using liquid pulp as the raw material. The company now plans to test the process in new test facilities with a capacity of around 500 tons of staple fibres per year.

  • In 2011, the project Blend Re:wind was initiated and has been developed at Mistra Future Fashion by Chalmers University of Technology, Rise and Södra. Within this project, a method has been developed to separate the synthetic and cotton fibres in mixed materials and then produce new viscose fibres from the recycled cotton fibres. The method is not yet ready to be used commercially but it has potential to be an important contribution to the development of a circular fashion industry.

  • Another example of Swedish innovation is the company Re:newcell that has developed a new recycling technique. They create so-called Re:newcell pulp from old clothes made from cotton and other bio-degradable materials. New textile fibres are created from the pulp.