Clothing Circularity for Malmö City - case study
Challenge:
How can the city of Malmö prevent individual precipitately disposal of clothing, i.e. unsustainable consumption and waste generation of textiles?
Global Context:
According to a report by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (Naturvårdsverket) (2011), 15kg of textiles are consumed per person per year and only a small part of it is recycled while the rest is incinerated. When such resource and labor intensive items are being thrown away, while the demand for new items continues to rise, waste is constantly reinforced. Cities around the world are confronted with the same problem.
Year: 2019
Status: Finalized
Client: Malmö textile scene (concept development as part of the Leadership for Sustainability programme)
Solved: “The LOOP” project. ​Create an online platform that will facilitate and raise awareness to the public on how to contribute to close the loop in the fashion industry.
HOW IT WORKS:
The project operates to close the loop within the fashion system by keeping the products in use for as long as possible; this is done by addressing four specific loops, namely:
Loop I: Maintenance
Loop II: Repair/refurbish
Loop III: Reuse / redistribute
Loop IV: Recycle
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The city of Malmö already has many options in place such as second hand stores, repair shops, and recycle bins for textiles. The LOOP brings together all the existing avenues for clothing & accessories under one umbrella to make it easy and fun for people to find alternative sustainable options. This ensures that the need for new products on the market is lessened and a more sustainable consumption behavior is adopted.
+ Societal value: one umbrella for all sustainable initiatives
+ Economical value: empower sustainable initiatives & unite
+ Environmental value: change people’s consumption patterns on clothing ​
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​External collaborators: Madhuri Muralidhar, Niclas Jonsson, Aniela Rutkowska, Anna Tainio.