Towards a lower impact of the textile industry: the role of Centexbel in SYMBA

As you all know, the environmental footprint of the textile industry is substantial due to the large volumes being produced and discarded yearly. Hence, the European consumption of textiles has the fourth-highest impact on the environment and climate change, after food, housing, and mobility. The textile sector is ranked third for higher water and land use, and fifth for the use of primary raw materials and greenhouse gas emissions. So logically, the textile sector is also high on the priority list of the European Commission. In 2022, the EC adopted the ‘EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles’.

The new strategy sets out the vision and concrete actions to ensure that by 2030 textile products placed on the EU market are long-lived and recyclable, made as much as possible of recycled materials, are free of hazardous substances and produced in respect of social rights and the environment.

Aligned with this strategy, the Textile ETP published in July the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) for the ‘Textiles of the future’ European partnership. The SRIA identified 3 main priority areas and 13 strategic topics. The priority area ‘Sustainable Materials & Clean Processes’ includes the strategic topics ‘Sustainable bio-based feedstocks’ and ‘Sustainable textile chemistry’.

To make this vision happen, the textile industry and their suppliers (and thus also research institutes like Centexbel) are scouting locally available waste streams, also generated within other sectors like the agro- or food sector, which could potentially be used to produce novel fibres or chemicals for finishing textile fabrics, thus replacing the fossil-based materials used nowadays.

The innovative Industrial Symbiosis methodology being created within SYMBA will facilitate this quest for (feedstock for) novel biobased materials. Especially the creation of the local hubs within SYMBA and the database of available waste and side streams can be of great assistance.

By using the tools provided by SYMBA, we are hoping to answer to the SRIA, and so to contribute to the goals set in the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, and eventually lower the environmental footprint of the textile industry.

Centexbel

Ine De Vilder

ivi@centexbel.be