Latvian cities will soon have textile sorting containers

In September, bins for textiles will be placed in Riga, Mārupe, Babīte and Tukums

Starting this Autumn, 20 textile recycling bins will be placed in Riga, Mārupe, Babīte and Tukums, provided by the waste management company Eco Baltia Movement. Everything collected in these bins will be transported to the Movement’s facilities near the city of Tukums. The company will also be collecting data on what materials citizens are discarding and how frequently they do it.

According to the CEO of Eco Baltia Movement, the plan for these containers is to expand the service in the coming years. They want to have 1000 containers available in the whole of Latvia by 2025, so that all citizens have the opportunity to sort their textiles.

Currently textiles collected in Latvia are not being recycled, rather they are simply being incinerated. That’s not because of a lack of textile recycling plants, however. Many companies are importing textiles from abroad in order to recycle them, rather than collecting waste generated in the country.

So far pretty much the only path towards textile sustainability was donations. But according to the Latvian Red Cross, Latvian donation culture is not great. Around 40-50% of donated clothes need to be disposed of upon being received because they are unusable. As a result, around 40,000 tons of textile waste goes to the landfill each year. Hopefully the addition of the recycling containers will remedy the situation.