Library: Initiatives
New circular business models: focus on purchases, work clothing and the textile service industries
Initiative
New circular business models: focus on purchases, work clothing and the textile service industries
About
The challenge of the City of Herning in the beginning of the project was that all new employees of the technical operations department received brand new work clothes and whenever an employee resigned the clothes were discarded, regardless of the quality. Also when the current textile service contract would expire, all work clothing would be discarded. The discarded work clothes were not recycled.To solve this problem, City of Herning started a circular economy project with the following objectives:-To define operative and objective criteria for reuse of work clothing.-To adjust the current textile service contract in order to introduce a circular economy based model to this specific purchase area.-To develop a general guide for incorporating a circular economy based model into public tenders, which can be used in various purchase areas and by other public entities.-To find commercial recycling solutions for used work clothes.
Region
DK04 - Midtjylland
Country
Denmark
Date
01 Sep 2013 - 31 Oct 2014
5P
Planet
Status/Progress/Experience
Possible economic and ecological impacts were calculated during the project by FORCE Technology. Reuse of work clothes and transfer of work clothes, from the current contract to the next, would save 6 700 Euros and 1 011 tonnes of CO2 in a 4 year period in Herning's technical operations department alone.