A joint venture effort to gather, organise, and sell discarded and unwanted clothing and textiles has been formed by the Swedish fashion giant Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) Group and waste management company Remondis. To maximise the use of such priceless resources, Looper Textile Co., a stand-alone joint company owned equally by both partners, was established.
Looper wants to establish itself as a top supplier of feedstock for businesses and entrepreneurs involved in recycling and reselling textiles. The standalone joint venture is starting its activities in Europe and seeks to extend the highest use of about 40 million garments in 2023. The business intends to develop in the area of textile collecting and sorting, for instance by experimenting with new collection techniques and putting automated sorting methods like near-infrared sorting into use. According to a joint press statement from H&M Group and Remondis, the companies are creating a variety of partners in the reuse and recycling sectors.
It gives us great pleasure to announce the opening of Looper Textile Co. To be reused or recycled, used and unwanted clothing must first be gathered and divided into various streams, such as by kind of material or garment. Today, the European Union collects fewer than 40% of worn clothing. As a result, 60% of post-consumer textiles are thrown away. We intend to take a step towards enabling circularity by developing infrastructure and solutions for collection and sorting, which will reduce the CO2 effect and increase resource efficiency, said Emily Bolon, CEO of Looper Textile Co.
“We areWe are happy to have discovered the synergy between H&M Group and Remondis and are sure that the textile loop, given its extreme complexity, can only be closed with reliable, creative, and like-minded partners along the value chain.
Through its investment arm, H&M CO:LAB, the H&M Group has made investments in businesses that provide technologies to enable textile recycling. In 2013, the H&M Group was the first fashion firm to establish a clothing collection effort globally. The H&M Group is taking a more active role in building the infrastructure required to finish the fashion supply chain by establishing this stand-alone joint venture. Remondis has been a pioneer in trash management for many years and has extensive experience in delivering collection and sorting solutions at scale”
