Visit at textile factory in Vilnius

On the 16th and 17th of April 2013, the municipality of Copenhagen and Plastic ZERO  visited a textile sorting central just outside Vilnius, Lithuania.

As part of the textile collection and sorting forum, the purpose of the trip was to get a better understanding of what actually happens with the clothes that we put in the collecting bins all around town.

With a sorting capacity of 30 tons of textile per week and nearly 300 employees, the sorting central is the biggest and most modern of its kind in Lithuania.

To make sure that as much of the textiles as possible are reused, it´s sorted into more than 60 different categories, varying from high quality vintage clothes sorted for specific markets or special requests, to textile reused as cleaning clothes. Only 4 % of the output is burned and everything else is sold or donated with the purpose of reuse.

Our hosts were also kind enough to give us a guided tour to 3 thrift shops in Lithuania. The shops are all run by paid staff and supplied with new clothes from the sorting central every 7th week. To make sure that the customers always have a good reason to buy reused clothes they have also developed their own shopping concept, which includes gradually reduced prices, pop up happy hours and a constant flow of reuse clothes on the shopping rags. 

Thanks a lot to our kind hosts, for some very inspiring days in Vilnius.