A total of 20,816 tons of used clothes, home textiles and shoes were disposed of ecologically sensible in TEXAID collection containers and bags in 2009. Thanks to an unabated demand for good quality Swiss second hand wares in the customer countries the most prominent Swiss collection organization was able to close the recession year 2009 with a good overall result and could pay out more than 2.7 million francs to the affiliated aid organizations and regional organizations.

What happens to all those clothes, shoes and home textiles (that are) disposed of in the red and white TEXAID containers and bags? Let us take a look behind the scenes of Switzerland's only textile recycling company. Enjoy our video «TEXAID – the best way for used textiles» (15 min.). You can order the DVD for free by sending a mail to pr@texaid.ch or by phone +41 (0)41 874 54 07.

TEXAID takes over the ORT Reinigungstextilien GmbH in Darmstadt/DE. The company specializing in the distribution of cleaning cloths made from used textiles to the industry will, among others, assume the product sale for TEXAID's own cleaning rag production at Eger/Hungary. ORT shall also collect used textiles in Germany in the future. Currently the company generates a turnover of about one million Euro and employs eight people.

Cotton clothes not wearable any more are a sought-after cleaning rag material for the industry. Therefore appropriate goods from the TEXAID sorting facilities are now cut into cleaning rags at the Hungarian Eger. 35 employees are producing 2,000 tons thereof a year. TEXAID has a share of 70 percent in the existing firm and in the medium term wants to complement the current rag production with a sorting plant similar to the one in Sofia/Bulgaria.

As of 7 February 2008, the sorting team of Texaid is working at the most modern sorting facility in Europe. The textiles collected in the red/white bags and containers are individually classified via voice control, recorded by the computer and automatically transferred to the correct repository. The collection organization invested almost four million Swiss Franks in the modernization of the largest textile sorting plant in Switzerland. The goals are long-term job security and a fifty percent increase in capacity.