The ENTeR project has completed its activities after three and a half years of work and is a good example of a project able to promote and encourage the circular economy and industrial symbiosis in the textile sector.

Centrocot together with the partnership – composed of research centers and associations of companies/clusters of the textile sector, belonging to five Central European countries: Italy (Lombardy), Germany (Saxony), Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland – presented at the final conference of the project, held on November 10, 2020, the activities carried out during three and a half years of work.

ENTeR, thanks to funding from the European Union, under the Interreg Central Europe program, has developed a system capable of enhancing the value of industrial textile waste based on the characterization and classification of their properties and using an online platform (M3P) for the matching of “materials and waste”.

Specifically, the project has realized:

– 9 pilot cases (IT: Recollection, recycling and waste management of stock, HU: 3D printing in textile industry, HU: Development of the waste management related in-house logistic system, HU: Wool Waste, DE: From residues to raw material, CZ: Generation of waste from manufacturing of technical textiles, CZ: Reduction of the waste generation through prolongation of the service life of textile products, PL: System of segregation and preparation of postproduction waste and ALL: Textile waste coming from medical devices concerning COVID-19 emergency) that represent models (Best Practice) able to bring textile companies closer and closer to a circular and sustainable economic model.

– 5 training modules that have been organized to support companies in implementing circular economy actions.

– 1 Collaboration Agreement, signed by all partners, to provide innovative joint services on circular economy and industrial symbiosis. The collaboration agreement has defined the actions to be taken to jointly support innovation in the textile sector.

– 1 textile waste database (on M3P Platform): through the involvement of more than 140 European textile companies and 220 catalogued textile wastes, a database has been built that contains characteristic data (technical, chemical and ecological characteristics) of all materials/wastes produced by the textile companies involved.

– 1 Strategic Agenda: a practical document that proposes a waste management strategy and lines of action to achieve an improvement in the consumption of non-renewable resources by promoting a circular economy approach in companies.

– 1 Action plan that defined the actions to be taken to support the Circular Economy in the textile sector.

In this context, the key objectives of the project have been achieved and ENTeR has shown that international collaboration has contributed to enhance the value of textile waste and, at the same time, to reduce the production of textile waste in order to prevent the consumption of non-renewable resources.