To fulfill the obligations under the EU waste directive, Finland will have to develop a network of local textile collectors and sorting facilities, build, and test the textile processing factory, and find ways to utilise recycled textiles. In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Anna Zhuravleva, Doctoral student at Hanken School of Economics at the HUMLOG Institute, gets together with Emppu Nurminen from Nextiili, an organisation from city of Tampere which is part of the textile collection pilot unfolding in Finland.  

 

Anna and Emppu walk us through all that we should know about textile reuse and recycling in Finland. They discuss the difference between reuse and recycling as the two are often used interchangeably in day-to -day language. ‘’Let’s say, your jeans, when they are recycled, are broken down into cotton fiber which is collected and then used as material for something else. Reuse is when someone is using your old jeans still as jeans’’, emphasizes Emppu.  

 

The discussion then delves into the transformation that lies ahead of us in the textile industry in Finland and all the closed-loop solutions we are seeing, and will see in the future. Emppu also talks about the social aspect of this transformation and foresees ‘’ this will lead to a more ecologically sustained society which will also create new recycling jobs in Finland’’. Tune in now to explore this significant upcoming development! 

 

CORRECTION: at 12:29: Emppu Nurminen is not leading the project on textile sorting at Nextiili. Helena Käppi is leading the project at Nextiili 

 

Explore more at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/