Telaketju
Telaketju is a cooperation network promoting the recycling of end-of-life textiles.
Telaketju develops the collection, sorting and further processing of end-of-life textiles, as well as business models based on circular economy. In cooperation with the operators in this sector, Telaketju is developing an ecosystem based on Finnish competence. This will create a new, powerful industry through multisectoral cooperation.
Telaketju is a multifaceted ensemble needing many different operators. The parties involved include collectors and processors, parties developing pre-processing and automated sorting, businesses utilising the end products, work centres arranging social work, waste plants, charitable organisations and cities.
Telaketju is a continuation to the “Textile 2.0” pilot project of 2016, which launched the collection and sorting of end-of-life textiles in the Southwest Finland area. The project was led by the Turku University of Applied Sciences and Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto. It was not very long before those involved in the pilot project realised that there was enormous interest in Finland in developing the entire life cycle of the textile loop. The name “Telaketju” is an abbreviation of the Finnish words for a network focused on collecting, sorting and utilising textiles.
The first stage of Telaketju gained support from the Ministry of the Environment and Tekes, the predecessor of public funding agency Business Finland. The Ministry of the Environment granted support to the pilot project for collecting and sorting textiles. Some of the businesses involved applied for Tekes funding for the development of the processes, business operations and product development under the Telaketju umbrella. In addition to the projects of these businesses, Tekes provided funding for a public project, which determined the nature of the end-of-life textile loop. The idea was to fund the various parts of Telaketju both nationally and locally through many different parallel projects.
The first stage of Telaketju was coordinated by Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT).
The second stage of Telaketju began in May of 2019. It is funded by Business Finland together with more than 20 businesses and other organisations. The second stage focuses on the circular economy of textiles as a whole and its new business models. It consists of the development projects of the businesses (five in total), as well as public research conducted by the VTT, the Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) and the Lahti University of Applied Sciences (LUAS).
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