Wasted Textiles

The primary objective of this project is to reduce the use of synthetic textiles and the amount that goes to waste.

Wasted Textiles is a collaborative project and the primary objective is to reduce the use of synthetic textiles and the amount that goes to waste. The project is led by Ingun Grimstad Klepp at SIFO/OsloMet and received funding of NOK 12,000,000 from the Research Council of Norway and Norwegian Retailers’ Environment Fund, out of a total budget of NOK 16,000,000.

The use of plastic has increased rapidly over the last 50 years and today synthetic textiles make up at least 60 percent of the global fibre production. Synthetics spreads microplastics and the textiles pollute nature and wildlife and are problematic in waste treatment. The project will increase knowledge about synthetic textiles in clothing and other products such as hygiene products, toys, sports equipment and more.

Wasted Textiles will start by mapping all textiles that go out of use in households. It is the textiles at this stage we refer to as “wasted”, and which can end up in many different waste streams, forgotten in storage or even lost in nature. From this point in the product’s life, we will look backwards and forwards in the value chain and ask:

  1. What do wasted textiles consist of, how and why is textile waste generated and how are textiles disposed of?
  2. How much textiles, especially synthetic, are wasted in Norway?
  3. How can consumption of synthetic textiles be minimised, replaced or utilised to reduce synthetic wasted textiles?
  4. What are the environmental, economic and societal impacts of circular economy strategies for consumption and disposal of synthetic textiles?
  5. Which regulatory measures can be implemented and be feasible in reducing the volume of synthetic textile waste?

The five questions each have their own work package. The work package leaders are Kirsi Laitala from SIFO/OsloMet, Frode Syversen from Mepex Consult, Kjersti Kviseth from Norwegian Fashion & Textile Agenda (NF&TA), and Susie Jahren and Moana Simas from SINTEF. Jens Måge from Avfall Norge leads the project’s steering group. Other important partners are Fretex, the Norwegian Consumer Council and the Future in Our Hands, Kerli Kant Hvass and Tone Tobiasson, as well as member companies in Avfall Norge and NF&TA and the Faculty of Technology, Art and Design at OsloMet. The project thus brings together the entire clothing sector in Norway: production, design, use and disposal.

Participants at SIFO

  • Ingun Grimstad Klepp
  • Kirsi Laitala
  • Anna Schytte Sigaard
  • Marie Hebrok
  • Nina Heidenstrøm
  • Vilde Haugrønning
  • Lisbeth Løvbak Berg

Partners

  • SINTEF
  • Faculty of Technology, Art and Design, OsloMet
  • Avfall Norge with member companies
  • Mepex Consult
  • Norwegian Fashion & Textile Agenda (NF&TA)
  • Fretex
  • Norwegian Consumer Council
  • Future in Our Hands
  • Tone Skårdal Tobiasson
  • Kerli Kant Hvass


News

Artefacta conference

For the fourth time, University of Helsinki arranged the Artefacta conference. It brings together researchers and professionals interested in objects, material culture and our relationship to them (click here for full program helsinki.fi). I had the great honor of opening the event with the talk “Product attachment in politics and wardrobes”. I described the development…

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Defibering the future

The Wasted Textiles project took the trip to Norsk Tekstilgjenvinning in Sandefjord, and were privy to an introduction to one of the few recycling projects that can actually have something to offer, as the founder Pål Erik Haraldsen has understood the limitations and that it may sometimes be wise to say ‘no’. Photo, behind, from…

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Telling it like it is: Lambasting consumer-facing Higg-based label

In a newly published article from Consumption Research Norway SIFO at Oslo Metropolitan University, Who Can Stop the Greenwashing, penned by Ingrid Haugsrud and Ingun Grimstad Klepp, the authors literally lambaste how the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (now Cascale) misused outdated and faulty data for their launch of a Higg (now Worldly) consumer-facing sustainability label. In…

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Hello from Melbourne!

In September 2024, we left autumnal Oslo behind to embark on a research exchange at the University of Melbourne with the Critical Fashion Studies research collective. This group, led by Professor Natalya Lusty and Dr. Harriette Richards, brings together fashion scholars, practitioners, and industry members to advance research on sustainability, ethics, and innovation in fashion.…

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