Textile Challenge – Framtidens textilsystem [DEL 3]

Summary

The session examines emerging technologies, regulation, and practical infrastructure needed to build a circular textile system.

Technology and digital systems

• AI-assisted sorting: Commercial solutions are being tested to make textile sorting more efficient and support recycling. Examples include Trosort and Reversed Fashion. One solution is being tested with customers to sort clothing more finely for online resale.
• Repair technology: A semi-automated zipper-repair station was tested at Decathlon but did not fit its business model. A social-enterprise reuse operator later used it to train workers and repair higher-quality garments for sale in its stores.
• Digital product passports for sorting: Projects are exploring how product data can direct textiles to appropriate recycling processes. One project tested a combination of RFID, near-infrared (NIR) sensing, and AI; another tested RFID readers at a Human Bridge facility. Information about chemicals and surface treatments may be especially useful when deciding how to recycle textiles.
• Integrated systems: A Swedish startup is developing a broader solution intended to connect parts of the textile system and potentially support future producer-responsibility arrangements. A separate project is exploring a deposit-and-return model that links collection, a digital product passport, a customer app, and rewards.
• Digital tools for product development: Digital infrastructure is developing through both research projects and commercial products, including systems for comparing materials, suppliers, and processes.

Regulation and policy

• The speakers describe a shift in EU priorities. Sustainability remains on the agenda, while competitiveness, industrial policy, security, and reducing dependence on foreign supply chains have become more prominent.
• EU efforts to simplify regulation aim to reduce administrative burdens on companies. The speakers also note uncertainty about how far simplification should go and which businesses should be covered.
• Sweden is preparing to implement updated EU requirements for textile producer responsibility. Recommendations discussed include developing domestic capacity for textile pre-sorting, considering incentives through eco-modulated fees, and ensuring that non-profit organizations can continue handling donations under suitable conditions.
• The forthcoming EU Circular Economy Act is presented as a potential way to develop a larger European market for secondary materials and waste. The speakers stress that effective systems require both EU-level coordination and active national implementation.

Panel: Scaling the system and finding uses for materials

• Municipal collection needs flexibility: Procurement should consider local employment and circular-economy benefits, as well as cost. Collection and transport conditions vary greatly between municipalities, so systems should reflect local geography and avoid inflexible, oversized infrastructure.
• Textile waste as an industrial input: A Höganäs representative described exploring cotton-rich textile waste as a source of bio-based carbon to replace some fossil carbon in steelmaking. In this use, carbon acts as a reducing agent and alloying input rather than simply being burned as fuel. Damaged, low-value textiles may be suitable, provided they are sorted and do not contain too much fossil-based material. The speaker estimated that, in a realistic scenario, the company could use 60,000–70,000 tonnes per year, with greater potential across Sweden’s steel and metal industries.
• Sorting and logistics are essential: Human Bridge reported collecting and pre-sorting about 50 tonnes per day and working with around 120 municipalities. Additional capacity could be added, but investment depends on viable markets and financing. Demand for used clothing differs across countries, making global trade relevant.
• Retail experimentation takes time: A KappAhl representative described using innovation projects to test reconditioning and second-hand services. Scaling requires evidence of customer interest and profitability, internal organizational change, and services that are convenient and appropriately priced.

Panel participants emphasized keeping systems adaptable as technologies and markets develop, and prioritizing reuse and material recycling over incineration.

No product review, guide, or tutorial is featured; the video is a technology overview, policy discussion, and industry panel.

Main speakers and sources

• Emma Bog (RISE): Technology developments and textile sorting, repair, and digital systems.
• Gitta: Legislative overview and recommendations for Sweden’s implementation of textile producer responsibility.
• Astrid: Perspective on EU policy developments from Brussels.
• Panel contributors:
  • Sandra Alm (City of Gothenburg)
  • Magnus Pettersson (Höganäs)
  • Kristoffer Stålgren (Human Bridge)
  • Victoria Arn (KappAhl)
  • Katarina Sundberg (Sweden’s municipal waste-sector organization, as rendered in the subtitles)
• Moderators/hosts: Birgitta Osman and Susann Eros.