Sustainable textile use is also well aligned with Valmet’s mission to convert renewable resources into sustainable results. In textile recycling, the potential is currently focusing strongly on the European market, where the EU is planning to stop textile landfills by 2025 and is increasingly pushing for more recycling of clothes.
In 2021, Valmet announced two major orders from the textile industry. Valmet will deliver the main equipment for Renewcell’s textile recycling plant, and drying technology for the Spinnova-Suzano joint venture textile fiber factory. Renewcell processes used cotton and other cellulose fibers and transforms them into a biodegradable pulp product produced from 100 percent recycled textiles.
“Valmet’s experience in scaling up and demonstrating new technologies on a commercial scale and our own pilot facilities for testing innovations are great advantages for us in entering the textile fiber industry. We are also ready to develop technologies further for different customer needs with our key partners,” says Ari Saario, Vice President, Strategy and R&D, Pulp and Energy business line.
Renewcell
“Our customers use the dissolving pulp we produce, Circulose®, to make biodegradable virgin quality viscose or lyocell textile fibers. We are proud to be working with industry-leading textile companies like H&M Group and Tangshan Sanyou in using our product. We are currently building a new industrial scale textile recycling plant at SCA Ortviken’s industrial area in Sundsvall, Sweden. Since 2017, we have been developing and optimizing our world-unique patented recycling process at our smaller scale plant in Kristinehamn, and we will use the findings from our Ortviken project, in which Valmet is our key technology partner,” says Harald Cavalli-Björkman, Renewcell’s Chief Growth Officer.
Spinnova
“We chose Valmet, a global leader in pulp and paper technology, as a key partner in our technology to support the scaling of our sustainable fiber production. With proof of concept from our pilot factory in Jyväskylä, Finland, we are now building our first commercial fiber factory, also in Jyväskylä, as a 50/50 joint venture with our strategic partner Suzano. The factory is expected to be operational at the end of 2022, producing fiber for our brand partners, which, among other great brands, currently include Adidas, the H&M Group, The North Face and Marimekko. The textile industry is eagerly awaiting sustainable alternatives for their material base,” explains Janne Poranen, Spinnova’s CEO and co-founder.
Text Leif Lindberg
