The subject of the thesis was the amount and recovery of production cutting waste within the Finnish textile production industry today as well as to survey the recycling and recovery possibilities in the future. The thesis was commissioned by The Federation of Finnish Textile and Clothing Industries Finatex and the companies chosen as the target group here were members of Finatex. The topic is important for the industry, since disposal of textile waste will end by 2016 due to the new Finnish landfill Act 331/2013.

The objective of the thesis was to study the quantity, quality and recovery rate of the production cutting waste with the target group companies. An additional objective was to conduct an initial survey on the concrete recycling and recovery possibilities of textile cutting waste.

The survey of the quantity, quality and recovery rate of cutting waste was conducted through personal interviews and electronic surveys. Altogether 18 companies (20 facilities) were reached with these methods. The initial survey on the recycling and recovery possibilities was conducted as a literature review.

The total amount of the textile waste of the target companies was 496 tons in 2013. The average amount of textile waste per company was 24,8 tons. Most (65 percent) facilities supplied all (100 percent) of the textile waste for energy recovery. Three companies disposed their textile waste to landfill. Recycling was reported by five facilities and the highest recycling rate of the facilities was 70 percent. Most companies (80 percent) were willing to develop their recycling activities. The most commonly mentioned hindrances to recycling were the properties of the waste (flame retardants and other chemicals etc.) were.

According to this research project energy recovery is the most reasonable and cost efficient recovery method for the heterogenic and minimal amount of textile waste produced by the Finnish textile industry at the moment. Company specific solutions for minimizing the wastage and to increase the recycling rate are still worthwhile to be developed further.