Switzerland is to have its first automated recycling centre for used clothing in 2026, to be located in St Margrethen and building on the collaboration between textile collector Tell-Tex and Säntis Textiles, the developer of proprietary RCO100 mechanical fibre recycling technology.

Until now, clothing collected by Tell-Tex was sold to certified sorting centres in Europe but this is due to stop from 2026.

 In the new textile recycling centre, goods will be sorted fully automatically by material and colour on an industrial scale and then mechanically recycled.

“The new textile recycling centre is the first facility of its kind on an industrial scale in Switzerland,” said Ercüment Yildirim, managing director of Tell-Tex.

Tell-Tex currently collects around 20,000 tons of clothing each year, representing almost a third of the used clothing collected in Switzerland. Around 40% of the textiles collected – almost 8,000 tons – are processed into wipes, backfill or filling material.

In total, Tell-Tex is investing Sfr 40 million but is well aware the used clothing trade is no longer as lucrative as it used to be and prices for collected textiles have fallen sharply.

Turning the waste into secondary materials is seen as the route to profitably keeping materials in a circular economy and the company also envisages increased business in the sorting of materials from institutions such as hospitals and hotels, as well as corporate uniforms.

www.tell-tex.com