PAIMIO - Finnish firm Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto (LSJH) has successfully started up a new Andritz pilot line for research and development work on post-consumer textile recycling. The Exel tearing machine for post-consumer textile waste can process up to 500 kg/h for spinning quality and up to 1 t/h for nonwoven fibre quality.

The entire process is designed to ensure the total absence of metallic material in the fibres and remove hard, non-textile items using cleaning devices, highly sensitive metal traps, and metal detectors.

LSJH is a municipal waste management company in Finland specialized in processing post-consumer household textiles into a variety of customized raw materials containing high-quality fibres. As Finland will be the first country in the world to start post-consumer textile collection on a national scale in a few months’ time, the LSJH Paimio recycling facility is the location where large amounts of textile waste will be fed to a sustainable and responsible circulatory solution.

Process engineer Conny Gabrielsson said: “We are very grateful to Andritz and its team members for their assistance during the installation of our pilot line for processing textiles. The project was executed on time with a high level of professionalism, and the continuing support is a true sign of dedication. Andritz provided us with turnkey equipment that enables us to deliver textile raw material solutions of high quality to meet our end-customers’ various needs – now and in the future.”