Denmark to become circular frontrunner through ReSuit project

A new innovative project aims to redraw the boundaries between clothing design, recycling technologies, and consumer behavior. Through this project discarded garments, whether used, destroyed, or new can be broken down into new raw materials and used in a circular economy.

The emphasis is on textile industry sustainability, as well as the recycling of all textile waste in Denmark. The initiative is called ReSuit (Recycling Technologies and Sustainable Textile Product Design), which is funded by the Innovation Fund with DKK 13 million (EUR 1.8 million.).

Raw material production (A/S Dansk Shell), clothing and textiles (Bestseller, Elis, and Designskolen Kolding), emerging recycling innovators (Fraunhofer, Danish Technological Institute, and Aarhus University), and customer behavior (Naboskab) are among the consortium’s members.

Anders Lindhardt from Danish Technological Institute, which is heading the project, said globally, 100 billion textile units are manufactured per year, with the majority of them being treated as disposable cutlery. Due to a shortage of infrastructures and solid recycling technologies on a wide scale, materials worth 400 billion euros are wasted.

They hope to close the loop on all textile waste in Denmark by turning it into new textiles or raw materials for other goods in this project. It has the potential to be a game-changer if it works.