“We have a network of Nordic laundries where we source fiber from cotton-rich textile waste – such as hotel bed linen or towels – and we have created a system to collect and sort this for use,” explains Degerman. “We have a target to scale up the amount of textile waste in our end product and in order to do that we must refine this system and source from outside of Europe. We are working on partnerships in Bangladesh, for example, where we could take on textile off-cuts from clothing manufacturers.”
While the cotton component is reused, the polyester is incinerated, and the heat energy channeled into other parts of the OnceMore operations. However, Degerman says that Södra is constantly researching how polyester can be recycled and forecasts more future innovation in this area.
“Through OnceMore, Södra is also investing heavily in technology that will purify recycled textile waste, which will enable us to take on more colored items and post-consumer textiles,” she says.
As such, a key aspect of the OnceMore’s capability to offer an attractive product to the market is its purification process – an innovation that is patented.
“The purification process is highly important because we want to keep the high level of quality as normal dissolving pulp without the recycled content – it needs to be pure for our customers to have confidence in it,” she says. “The first part of that is how we source the textile waste and sort it, and then how we chemically recycle that to purify it. The latter part is very tricky because of the mixed content, so there is ongoing innovation around this process.”
Additionally, OnceMore has been certified in accordance with the RCS (Recycled Claim Standard). This will become increasingly important for clothing manufacturers as regulation tightens up on textiles not only containing recycled content but being recyclable.
Degerman points out that collaboration with both upstream and downstream partners is extremely important because without those partnerships, OnceMore would not exist.
“What we’re doing is not just a new approach in terms of the technology but it’s a system. Fundamentally, we need to develop this together – and a large part of that is understanding how our partners work, and educating them on our process,” she says. “This way we not only meet each other’s needs better, but there is transparency.”