Twente Milieu (public sector) focuses on textile collection. Through various actions and programmes, Twente Milieu aims to raise awareness among consumers and companies about the separate and clean delivery of textiles. Twente Milieu wants to achieve optimum harmonisation with its partners regarding the organisation of the collection and sorting of textiles.
Regional Textile Sorting Centre Twente (private sector). The recycling companies Het Goed and De Beurs have merged their textile sorting activities in Twente into a new joint venture: Regionaal Textielsortecentrum Twente (RTT). The RTT sorts the textiles that are brought in by Twente Milieu. Part of the textile is sold in the recycling shops. Another part is sorted for further processing by Frankenhuis.
SaXcell ( private partner) is engaged in chemical recycling of cotton waste. This technology is complementary to mechanical textile recycling. The aim of chemical cotton (cellulose) recycling is to transform waste cotton textiles into high-quality fibres. SaXcell is one of the few true examples of upcycling, because very short fibres (unusable for the textile industry) are turned into long fibres again, which can be used as a cotton substitute. SaXcell BV is a start-up company and originates from Saxion Enschede (knowledge institute).
Saxion (knowledge institute) is with the bachelor Fashion & Textile Technologies and the master Innovative Textile Development a very important European player in the field of textile education. The professorship Sustainable & Functional Materials, attached to Saxion, harbours a variety of expertises and is involved in many national and European studies on textiles and textile recycling.
Frankenhuis (private partner)– has capacity for the mechanical fiberising of 10,000 to 20,000 tons/year of non-reusable clothing. Frankenhuis is an innovative partner, where much effort is put into the development of new applications for the processed textile waste.
Enschede Textielstad Innovation B.V. (private partner) focuses on the production of fabrics with recycled yarns as the main raw material. Enschede Textielstad is the coordinator of the Twente Textile Cafes. The intention is for this network to form a broad textile cluster, in which cooperation on certain business cases is formalised and supply and demand for the use of knowledge, manpower and facilities and for solving urgent issues are brought together.
This approach has been coordinated with the sector association Modint (policy partner), which represents both the production and the trade side of the textile market. With its integral technical textile recycling and the formation of a textile cluster, our Twente hub links up with Modint’s Dutch Circular Textile Valley initiative. In addition, high-quality textile recycling is an important pillar in the national transition agenda for consumer goods:
There are various regions in the Netherlands with both a history and a future around textiles, fashion and clothing. These include Twente, Tilburg, Arnhem and Amsterdam, each with their own distinctive focus: high-grade recycling, industrial clothing, design and business. Various parties in the Twente region are for instance working on the development and application of new recycling methods. The idea arose to develop these four regions ambitiously and with the prospect of high-grade recycling technologies into Circular Textile Valleys in which existing and new companies, knowledge institutions and regional authorities will jointly focus on circular textile recycling and production. The Transition Team and Modint propose to start these valleys in Twente, by realising a first development and pilot production capacity that designers and brands (producers) can use to develop and produce pilot collections in a circular way, both in fashion (B2B) and in workwear (B2B)