📋 Tender Overview
LIFE TREATS (Textile Recycling in Europe AT Scale) is a joint project by Södra and Lenzing aiming to demonstrate an innovative industrial-scale system for chemical recycling of textile waste. The two companies have combined their decades-long experience, knowledge, and technology to develop a unique process. For the first time, the proposed solution will allow handling a wide variety of complex post-consumer-coloured textiles containing a mix of cotton, polyester, and other components such as elastane. The partners will scale up the new technology at the project site of Södra Cell Mörrum in Sweden. The plant will be capable of processing 50,000 tons of coloured blended post-consumer textile waste, producing 63,000 tons of pulp with 50% recycled content. In line with the EU Circular Economy Action Plan, this project will make sizeable contributions, diverting large volumes of coloured blended textile waste from being downcycled, landfilled, or incinerated. The plant aims to achieve a 23 % reduction in process chemical use, a reduction of GHG emissions of 7.9%, a decrease in energy consumption of 13%, and water consumption of 0.74%, compared to current wood pulp production at the project site of Södra Cell Mörrum. The project thereby helps reduce the textile industry's environmental and social adverse effects in the EU and abroad. The project pursues an integrative approach to master real change and will involve stakeholders along the entire circular value chain. As it is the first project at such a scale, LIFE TREATS will impact the whole textile industry, open new circular business opportunities, and increase the proportion of recycled fibers used in new clothing. In addition, the recycling system has the potential to be replicated in other sites in the EU and across the world.
