Right now, there is no good use for what is actually textile waste. Therefore, I think it's quite unnecessary to collect it and send it here, says Örjan Österdal, CEO of Humana Lithuania, to SVT.
In the capital Vilnius, Humana operates one of the largest textile sorting facilities in Europe, and 160 Swedish municipalities send their textile waste there.
At the turn of the year, requirements were introduced for private individuals and businesses in Sweden to sort out textile waste and store it separately from other waste. Previously, worn-out and unusable clothes went to incineration in Sweden, but as a result of the law change, they instead meet the same fate in Lithuania – after a long journey by truck and boat.
At the facility in Vilnius, everything that can be reused is sorted out and sold as second-hand. Torn cotton clothes are used in the production of cleaning rags, while the rest is used as an energy source in a cement factory.
It doesn't have to be wrong to export textiles to other countries, but it would be better to have a serious sorting in Sweden, then we can avoid combustible materials leaving Sweden, says Birgitta Losman, sustainability strategist at the University of Borås, to SVT.
