‘’What if we could develop our own machines to revitalise textile production in Europe?” – Han Hamers, founder of CIRCULARITY
He comes from Loon op zand, which was known for its shoe production in the 1950s and 1960s. After about three years of trading and importing, he learnt that his manufacturer in Italy was closing its production facility. This gave him the opportunity to take over parts of this company and he set up his own production company for jogging suits, among other things.
This was followed in 1989 by a joint venture in Poland, which produced tracksuits, workwear and jackets. Step by step, the industry shifted to Asia, and after a visit to India in 1991, he decided to have his T-shirts and polo shirts produced in Tirupur region.
In 2014, research into recycling processes began in India. Initially to produce new yarn for T-shirts from cutting waste. A process that took four years. Once he had a proof of concept approved by TUV, a further step was taken: Collecting used textiles, which then go through the same process.
In 2013, he founded a production company in Bangladesh with his daughter Sally. A factory where they worked in a lean process instead of long production lines. A factory where human resource management was high on the agenda: including living wages instead of minimum wages, childcare, English classes for the female workers, management courses for women, school fees for the workers’ children and making a fair product.
His daughter was a manager in the factory and ran production, while I took over sales in the Netherlands.
They received recognition from Dutch Minister Ploumen for their‘women’s policy’, the training and the opportunities to put people at the center. The CSR women’s policy and the product innovations were launched by his daughter.
In July 2016, all this came to an abrupt end due to an Isis attack 1,200 meters from their private home. As a father and entrepreneur, it was no longer justifiable to keep the factory open. So it was closed.
A discussion then began about setting up production in the Netherlands: “Can we modify the machines so that we can produce in the Netherlands?”
After months of research and many comparisons of production processes in India, Bangladesh and the Netherlands, they started developing machines in 2018.
In June 2021, they were ready and moved into premises in Etten-Leur, the Netherlands where the recycling, spinning, knitting and cutting processes has been set up ever since.
From thereon they received visits from customers who want to be pioneers in the circular economy to make a difference.
But never say never. A pandamic, a war on European ground and finally a fire in the production caused unforseen problems and lead to a closure of Etten-Leur factory and all activities so far.
Our future
‘’What Han created during the last ten years inspires us to take up on this?” – Robert & Stefan, the founders of CIRCULARITY Germany.
We are convinced to work in two directions. One one side we can try to find customers for circular textiles and on the other side we can work out a concept to implement the first step in circular production. A fiberization factory in which textile waste is fiberized into secondary raw material for spinning of yarns for garment production.
