Renewcell begins commercial factory production

Swedish textile recycler Renewcell, has announced that its new flagship factory in Sundsvall, Sweden, has begun commercial production of its Circulose dissolving pulp.

The business acknowledged sending the first shipment to a customer, but it would not disclose the quantity or the client’s name due to commercial confidentiality.

Renewcell also declined to disclose its present manufacturing capacity, although it anticipates starting off with an annual production of 60,000 tonnes of Circulose and has raised money to increase that to 120,000 tonnes.

Renewcell 1, a facility owned by the company, claims to be the first 100% textile-to-textile recycling facility of its kind on an industrial scale. It was supposed to enter commercial production last year, but due to technical difficulties, this was postponed.

CEO Patrik Lundström said in October that in all modesty, it is now evident that they have been perhaps too ambitious in their time planning.

According to Renewcell’s most recent quarterly report, the delays caused the company to lose SEK 100 million ($9 million) in anticipated profits and raised the price of the new facility by another SEK 50 million ($4.5 million), bringing the total cost to SEK 1.45 billion ($132 million).

However, it noted that there was a healthy market demand and that after production had completely ramped up, the predicted profitability remained the same. High cellulosic clothing is broken down into a pulp using Renewcell’s patented method, which can then be utilized to produce virgin-equivalent raw material to build new clothes.

It recently agreed to supply up to 100,000 tonnes of its Circulose pulp over the next five years to Austrian fiber producers Lenzing. Additionally, it has begun new partnerships with brands including Inditex, the owner of Zara, PVH, Kering, and Ganni and has supplied Circulose fiber to other companies, including H&M, Levis, Bestseller, and Gina Tricot.