cling and textiles for recycling are generally sold for more differentiated sorting and subsequent reuse and recycling outside the Nordic market. Some of the private collectors behave very similarly to the charitable collectors and collect via containers and/or secondhand stores. There are however also a few private curbside collectors and private collectors (e.g. I:CO and KICI) who ally with retailers for new textiles in order to collect used textiles. These textiles are most likely to send the textiles directly to sorting abroad, without separating the textiles which could be useful for reuse in the Nordic region first.
3.2 Textile flows to and from the Nordic region Figure 4 indicates quantitative textile flows to and from the Nordic region based on the information collected in Kiorbøe et al. (2013) as well as Watson et al. (2013). The different colors indicate different levels of available information regarding the textile volumes. Green boxes indicate that data and information is available or good estimations can be carried out. Yellow boxes indicate that some data or information is available and that reasonable estimations can be carried out. Red boxes indicate that no, little or very uncertain data or information is available and that no reasonable estimations can be carried out. The imported and exported volumes of new textiles to and from the Nordic region are well known due to the trade statistics. These data do not include imports for personal use (e.g. cross-border online consumption), but these amounts are assumed to be relatively small. Additionally, data is available regarding production and consumption of new textiles in the Nordic countries respectively. Good data is available regarding the amounts of used textiles that are exported from the Nordic region. However, information regarding the proportions of these volumes that are sorted/presorted, exported for reuse and/or recycling and exported for disposal or energy recovery is lacking. The volumes of separately collected, reused and recycled used textiles within the Nordic region are (at least partly) relatively well known or can relatively well be estimated. Data regarding the volumes of used textiles that are sorted within the Nordic region and the amounts of used textiles that are discarded in these sorting processes are only partly available. Good information is available alternatively good estimations can be made regarding the waste treatment of used textiles that are not collected separately, but discarded with the mixed household waste.
Towards a new Nordic textile commitment
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