LIPOR | Launch of Portugal's first textile sorting pilot unit

LIPOR and its Associated Municipalities have inaugurated Portugal’s first Pilot Textile Sorting Unit, within the Be@T – Bioeconomy for Textiles and Clothing project. With an industrial pilot scale capacity of 50 tonnes per year, the unit separates textiles into 14 categories by composition and color, using both manual and automatic processes. This infrastructure aims to generate knowledge, empower the waste and textile sectors, and foster innovative reuse and recycling solutions, reducing the environmental impact of textiles and opening new business opportunities.

The launch was accompanied by the seminar “How to stitch textile circularity?”, which brought together experts, public bodies, companies, and associations to discuss challenges in textile waste management. Key issues included the urgent need for regulation, differentiated collection systems, producer responsibility, and national awareness campaigns. By piloting this unit, LIPOR seeks to assess scalability, gather concrete indicators, and test local collection models, contributing to the EU-funded Be@T project’s mission of accelerating bioeconomy in the textile sector. 

Source: www.lipor.pt (in Portuguese)