Circular economy through use of textile waste: Vilikkala joins ExpandFibre Ecosystem 

ExpandFibre had the pleasure to talk to Vilikkala’s Jari Toivonen, who shed light into the future business plans of this company which implements the circular economy ambitions of other companies related to textile waste.  

Vilikkala was founded in Salo, Finland, by Jari Toivonen and Hannu Tuomola in 2014. At the beginning, the company produced plant grow bags for garden from plastic bottles, but the focus has now shifted to blended textile fibres. Vilikkala complements the value chain by turning textile waste into high-value products for the automotive industry, construction, shoe and bag manufacturing and more. The felt material manufactured from textile waste by Vilikkala can be found in multiple end uses such as shoe innersoles, acoustic boards and car seats. 

Helping companies to reuse their textile waste 

Regarding the mission of Vilikkala, Jari Toivonen notes that the company wants to help companies struggling with valorising their waste textiles and reusing them into new textile products. With the growing customer demand, tightening regulatory framework within EU as well as globally, in addition to rising prices of carding and felt, the company sees great potential in recycled fibres or textile materials. Accordingly, Vilikkala has exciting plans underway to expand to Airlay production, where blended textile fibres will be used to create added value with coatings on needle felt and sheets.  

Jari explains that the planned Airlay production line offers several different applications using one production line. Vilikkala aims to use waste textile fibres as raw material but also different bio-based fibres. As examples, Jari mentions high-value leather-like products, functional acoustic products, thermoforming applications, fire-protected products, laminated special products, circular services as well as board and roll products.  

Tightening EU textile strategy boosts the expansion plans 

When creating car seat materials for specialized vehicles (e.g. taxis, buses, ambulances), Vilikkala is also finding ways how to replace polyurethane with other, more sustainable materials. This ambition is highly motivated by the EU textile strategy in the field of fibres. The strategy includes the Waste Framework Directive, introducing extended responsibility for manufacturers: All textile producers and importers are responsible for the costs associated with the disposal of textiles. While the circular economy perspective offers opportunities, there are also challenges to be tackled incl. the dominance of oil-based materials and ever-increasing amounts of consumer waste.  

From the local perspective, the textile waste problem in Finland is as significant as elsewhere in the world. There is a mountain of 70,000 tons (70 million kilograms) of textile waste generated every year in Finland. Solving the consumer textile waste issue is challenging, and with the newly planned Airlay production line, Vilikkala could potentially handle about 1000 tons of that 70,000 tons – this demonstrates the vast magnitude of the challenge at hand. Jari Toivonen anticipates that Vilikkala are able to move towards the pre-engineering phase of their Airlay production line in early 2025, and the plan is to have the Airlay production line up and running within a couple of years’ time, if everything goes according to the plan.  

Jari Toivonen is very excited to join the ExpandFibre Ecosystem and expand the company’s network with likeminded actors in the field of bioproducts. The collaboration with Metsä Group is ongoing and some highly inspiring meetings with fellow ExpandFibre members have already taken place. In particular, Vilikkala is looking forward to exchanging ideas with bio-innovation companies and perform tests with the members of the ExpandFibre Ecosystem.  

More information (in Finnish): https://vilikkala.fi/