CASE STUDY

ENTeR – Expert Network on Textile Recycling

Context:

While the next section will show how the globalized textile industry have reached a dominant position in the market, we will now see that there are some enterprises around the world working hard to relate the circular economy and the biological and technical cycle with the SDGs that have a direct impact on the planet. Also, R&D is fundamental to achieve this objective. ENTeR network (Expert Network on Textile Recycling) is an Interreg European funded project that built a strategic agenda on textile waste management and recycling, to support companies that want to be active in this field.

It promotes the improvement of SMEs’ competitiveness by reducing the mass production of simple products, and concentrating instead on a wider variety of products with higher added value thanks to investment and innovation, creativity and advanced technologies.

Description:

ENTeR project mention new technologies and business models that could anticipate European industry with a view to competitiveness:

• to investigate treatment technologies for textile waste (e.g. mono-fraction, homogeneous and valuable waste);
• to investigate ways of re-using of waste coming from technical textiles especially by the technical character of such textiles (e.g. heavy coated or laminated, composites with latex, paper etc.);
• to study removal of chemical substances from textile waste.

The main materials used by the fashion industry is rich in complect polymers and bio-polymers. As the traditional waste protocol of incineration or landfill disposal is being pointed out for its huge environmental impact, a research (Echeverria, 2018) proposed for instance the recovery of end-of-life textiles with the emphasis of promoting a cascading use of the fiber, for instance, the fiber bulk could be used as a low carbon alternative feedstock for building applications

Lesson learned:

The growth prospects on the European industry are mainly based on the capacity for innovation, aimed at increasing competitiveness in the context of sustainable development. This is why research is fundamental in this field.