Project Zeeman

From Waste to Zeeman – Building a Circular Hamam Towel

📍 10 September | 11:30 – 12:00 | Associate Square

A collaboration across the Dutch textile chain

What can you expect?
Six Dutch industry partners came together to create a circular hamam towel made entirely from Dutch post-consumer textile waste. The project brings together the full value chain — from collection and recycling to spinning, weaving, and retail — with Zeeman as the household name connecting the innovation to the market.

This session shares the technical, commercial, and collaborative challenges of pushing recycled textiles into real products at scale. You’ll hear how the partners experimented with post-consumer content, tackled restrictions in material availability, and balanced different company sizes and interests in order to share risks and responsibilities. Beyond the product itself, the session highlights how collaboration models can make or break circular projects — and what’s needed to scale them successfully in the future.

What will you learn?

• How post-consumer textile waste can be transformed into new consumer products
• Technical and commercial barriers to increasing recycled content
• Lessons from collaboration: trust, scale differences, and shared risks
• Why systemic incentives (true pricing, taxation shifts) are critical for scaling circular production
• What’s needed to expand this model into 2030: more brands, larger production, and better recycling innovation

Who should attend?
Brands and retailers interested in producing with post-consumer recycled textiles, industry partners in neighbouring countries, social enterprises, and anyone seeking to understand the realities of scaling circular textile collaborations.

Panelists
Ackelien Hageman – Enschede Textielstad
Liset Pander – Spinning Jenny
Mariëlle van Dillen – Zeeman
Marjolein Mann – CirkelWaarde

Moderator
Rosa Scholtens