Štip will use household textile waste to produce pet cushions and decorative pillows
Foundation for Local Community Development – Štip is launching the country's first textile collection centre to process household textiles into pillow fillings.
The municipal initiative in Štip will turn household textile waste into filling for pet cushions, decorative pillows and similar products, and a local NGO is close to opening the country's first dedicated textile collection centre.
The Foundation for Local Community Development – Štip announced a first large-scale collection drive where residents can bring clothing and other household textile waste, whether wearable or not. "So, we collect all types of household textile waste, not from industry, but only from households. With this, as I said, we are starting the opening, the beginning of a collection centre for textile waste, which every municipality that has over 30,000 inhabitants must have," said Boris Sharkovski of the Foundation for Local Community Development – Štip.
Officials say residents of Štip generate about five times more textile waste than those in other municipalities, a difference they attribute in part to the town's larger textile industry. While textile waste nationwide makes up roughly 5% of total waste, in Štip the share ranges between 35 and 40 percent depending on the year.
Environmental risks and project support
Project organisers emphasise that the collection centre will accept only household textiles, not industrial waste, and that a large share of the material is synthetic. "The harm that textile waste causes is because most of what we bring is synthetic. Synthetic materials, when broken down, are plastic, and plastic is made from oil, which means it ignites very easily," Sharkovski warned.
Burning textile waste on municipal dumpsites causes significant environmental damage by polluting air, soil and groundwater. The Štip textile collection centre is an initiative of the Foundation for Local Community Development – Štip and is being implemented with financial support from the European Climate Initiative through the Government of Germany.
The foundation says the collected material will be processed into fillings for pet cushions, decorative pillows and other items that use treated textile waste as stuffing, creating a local reuse stream for household textiles.
Photo: press material from the event
