Amsterdam is one of the cities actively helping to find solutions for a circular textile industry. The momentum has increased significantly in the last two and a half years – from the introduction of new collection containers for old clothes to new educational programs for schools to its own swap shop, which opened last year in Amsterdam. Five million single-use coats for hospital staff are also set to be replaced by fifty thousand reusable ones soon, and sustainable shopping addresses have been compiled in a brochure and are available in the city. All these initiatives were co-organized by the city administration.
All of these projects were made possible by Reflow, a Europe-wide initiative that aims to make material flows in major cities as circular as possible. Several initiatives to reduce textile waste, encourage reuse and develop new production methods have been launched in Amsterdam, led by the City of Amsterdam and the organizations Waag, BMA-Techne and Pakhuis de Zwijger. The results of the activities have now been presented as part of the Circular Textile Festival in Amsterdam.
Reflow: “Don’t keep reinventing the wheel”
“The best way to achieve a circular economy is not to keep reinventing the wheel,” emphasized Ista Boszhard and Cecilia Raspanti from Amsterdam’s future laboratory Waag in their presentation. Because that would cost a lot of energy and time. Boszhard: “At Reflow we looked at what is already happening. Where can we connect people? Which people can we put on a stage?” Many of the projects presented on this evening did not arise out of nothing, but are an extension or combination of already existing elements.
An example is the Swapshop: This concept already exists in Rotterdam, but with the help of Reflow a second one was created on Amsterdam’s Haarlemmerdijk and a system was developed that tracks the route of the swapped clothes.
Reflow also used the infrastructure of Amsterdam’s “Stadspas”, a city pass that offers various discounts for people on low incomes, to help all sections of the population become more sustainable. Stadspas owners received a 40 percent discount on clothing repairs at an affiliated tailor. The project is one of the favorite projects of Roosmarie Ruigrok, Reflow Project Manager at the City of Amsterdam. “Circular economy and sustainability are perceived as expensive. We really want an inclusive city, where residents with a slightly smaller budget can also benefit from the circular economy,” she remarked during a panel discussion. The discount scheme helps.
Circular Economy Education
In addition, Reflow has done a lot to educate the city’s residents about the issues of overproduction and the possibilities of the circular economy. Educational programs and extracurricular activities on these subjects have been developed for children. Livecasts, podcasts and digital repair workshops have been broadcast to keep the dialogue going throughout the pandemic. A national awareness campaign is to be launched in the summer.
In addition to the initiatives for the city dwellers, Reflow has also created cooperations between companies, institutes and governments. This is the specialty of the Amsterdam Economic Board, which has organized regular meetings with various stakeholders to bring together partners who want to work together to change standards in the industry.
An example of this is a coalition of sixty international partners from the denim industry working towards a standard of at least five percent recycled content in all denim garments. In the end, the percentage should be one hundred. A second goal is to better align Amsterdam’s collection process with the circular economy, with cleaner bins and a refined sorting process. A third order concerns the production of recyclable coats for the care sector. In this way, different groups in Amsterdam are taking steps together towards a circular economy for textiles.
The way to the future
It is certain that there are still many steps to be taken – the presentation is therefore more of an intermediate stage than an end point, as several speakers pointed out. But the path to get there is already mapped out. Parallel to the projects, the reflow partners worked on a roadmap that should set the direction for the future. This includes two main themes: The first is to create a circular aesthetic: an “inspirational circular fashion image” that can stimulate both manufacturers and users to change their behavior through beauty and special stories. The second point is expansion By increasing collection and processing capacities, the price of recycled textiles is expected to decrease, which is a good prospect for both companies and private consumers.
Other goals are the abolition of landfilling and incineration of textiles, more transparency in the value chain and concentration on local and demand-oriented production. New plans are to be drawn up for this in the near future.
This translated and slightly adapted article first appeared on FashionUnited.nl.