📋 Tender Overview
Around 31,500 employees: Inside from Austrian Airlines, City Airport Train (CAT), OBB, Post and Viennese lines wear recycling service clothing in their daily work. In addition, Salesians equip thousands of people with rental professional clothing every day. In a common pilot project, the six companies now give these uniforms a second life after their use and lead them to an innovative recycling process. Thanks to a lived circular economy, around 50 tons of textile waste can be avoided every year in this pilot phase - this roughly corresponds to the weight of 170,000 shirts. At the same time, the project should serve as a model and encourage other companies to join the sustainable recycling of service clothes.
Shooting in the sense of sustainability
Due to its enormous resource consumption and a previously insufficiently developed recycling system, the textile industry is one of the largest polluters worldwide. In Austria alone, there are around 27 kilograms of textile waste every year, a total of around 230,000 tons. The equivalent of approximately 1.2 billion T-shirts. Almost a fifth of this is currently being recycled according to the Federal Environment Agency or a circular economy process. The majority is used thermally.
It is all the more important to bundle the forces in Austria in order to be able to make textile recycling effectively and economically at all. Austrian Airlines, OBB, Post and Wiener lines have been working together on the initiative of the OBB since 2023. On the one hand to network, but also to apply the textile quantities required by the recycling companies that make recycling possible in the first place. A large contribution to this also makes Austrias largest rental textile company with Salesian, CAT completes the cooperation in the course of this project, which is unique in Austria.
Second life for 1-man panier
In the sense of a sustainable circular economy, the six companies - to match the Global Recycling Day on March 18 - a joint return system for used service clothing under the motto Second life for 1 -man panier. The uniforms and old textiles collected by the companies are collected at a location in Lower Austria. Instead of the usable materials are then delivered to Germany and Portugal in an environmentally friendly manner.
Textile revolution in Austria
The joint procedure of the six companies not only helps to save resources, but also support the establishment and expansion of the domestic recycling industry. The full service service provider Turns was commissioned as a partner company for the collection and reprocessing of the service cladding, which coordinates the process from sorting according to Turns recycling criteria to mechanical fiber recovery in the selected recycling partners: inside. As a pioneer in the area of textile-to-textile recycling, the so-called gymnastics fiber cycle enables such high-quality mechanical fiber recovery that a large part of the recycled fibers can be used again as a yarn for new textiles. A small part of the resulting fibers is used for fleece or filling material. The management consultancy EY Denkstatt plays a central role in the pilot project as an independent sustainability consultant and coordinator. Your tasks range from data collection and market exploration to the development of a collective and recycling concept as well as the accompaniment of the implementation phase. Ey Denkstatt also takes over the measurement of the environmental impact.
The shoulder closure of the six companies sets an important milestone for the circular economy in Austria and makes a significant contribution to protecting resources, reducing textile waste and strengthening the domestic recycling industry. As a pioneer: Austrian Airlines, OBB, Post, Wiener Linien, Cat and Salesians take the first step in Austria and hope to inspire other companies with this cooperation.
Annette Mann, CEO Austrian Airlines: We are pleased that with this pilot project, together with some of the leading companies in Austria, we can reduce textile waste and enable service clothing to have a second life. Austrian Airlines already offers a repair service for carriers: inside damaged uniform parts. We also have a used camp to keep the uniform items of our employees in circulation as long as possible. Michael Forster and Christoph KorheRR, Managing Director City Airport Train: At City Airport Train, we are proud to be part of this pioneering initiative. By recycling our service clothes, we make an important contribution to reducing textile waste and promote the circular economy in Austria. So together with our partners we take a step into a greener future.
Manuela Waldner, CFO OBB-Holding AG: Our sustainable thinking does not end when building infrastructure. In view of the enormous resource consumption in textile production, the recycling of the OBB service clothing is an important step, which also promotes the establishment of a textile circular economy. We also have a 100 % recyclable shirt on board at the OBB, of which around 30,000 pieces are spent on our employees annually: inside. For us it is clear: As the largest climate protection company in the country in the mobility area, we are progressing together with other leading companies in terms of sustainability and set a strong sign.
Walter Oblin, General Director Osterreichische Post AG: As a company with over 20,000 employees, we are responsible for society and the environment. Our service clothes have therefore consisted of sustainable materials since 2023, so our yellow-green DNA is visible throughout the country every day. In a circulatory process, we collect our old clothes and, in turn, hand it over to companies for the production of new yarn.
