What Standing Inside a Dissolving Pulp Mill Taught Me About Fashion's Next Gen Potential

A pulp mill smells like something between a sauna and a science lab. Not unpleasant, but not what I expected.

In late May, I boarded a bus in Copenhagen alongside 30-plus industry partners from across the textile value chain, bound for a two-and-a-half-hour journey across the Danish border into southern Sweden. The destination: Södra's Mörrum mill, an industrial dissolving pulp facility sitting quietly along the Baltic coastline, and home to a solution the textile industry has grappled with for decades: a truly closed-loop system that recovers discarded poly-cotton blends — mixed fabrics that until now had no viable recycling pathway. The usable cellulose is extracted for a second life in a hybrid blend dissolving pulp for new textile fabrics, and the separated polyester is repurposed to power the mill's entire production. Every input is utilized. Waste, fully accounted for.

By the end of two days, I was thinking about the supply chains I work in very differently.

Mörrum mill  — the systems, scale, and that familiar scent. 

We moved quickly along the highway, passing endless stretches of yellow fields of farmland and towering wind turbines. Upon arrival, following a brief presentation, we suited up in safety gear, split into two groups, and were led to the observation deck — the mill's highest point — to see not just the scale of what Södra operates, but to learn where and why: the strategic position along the coastline, and the surrounding communities the mill has been woven into for decades.

From up there, it became clear: this was industrial production in every sense of the word, as the gigantic recovery boiler chimney billowed steadily overhead. Inside the mill, we moved from room to massive room, tracing the journey of traditional dissolving pulp fibre (from FSC-managed forest inputs), along each step in its production: from pipes and drum washers, drying conveyor belts, and finally to the baling press, where flat-packed pulp sheets were stamped and stacked, ready for delivery. Understanding that process first mattered. It gave me the context and foundation to appreciate what I’d come to see — the pièce de résistance: the OnceMore® dissolving pulp production line.

OnceMore® — where the innovation becomes real

Tucked alongside the mill's exterior, we came to a modular outbuilding — pipes from the main facility feeding directly into it. This was the home of OnceMore®, and what happens here is meaningfully different from the main mill production we had just walked through.

Here, 20% of the material feedstock is textile waste. [XX on the makeup, where it is sourced, etc.]  This, combined with the 80% wood-derived dissolving pulp — we had just traced through the mill next door — would together create a first-of-its-kind, blended hybrid pulp, sold to a corporate customer, i.e, global fibre producers, that is used to make next season's fashion fabrics. An industry case study of what is possible and available now at scale. 

What sets OnceMore® apart is its patented chemical recycling process, specifically engineered for poly-cotton blends. The process separates the polyester from the cotton: the cotton is harvested for cellulose, while the extracted polyester is incinerated in the mill's recovery boilers to generate the energy that powers the entire operation. Waste, feeding the process that eliminates it.

The resulting pulp is what the industry calls a drop-in material — meaning a brand or manufacturer can feed it directly into an existing production system without the need to adjust settings, formulas, or delay processing speed. Win, win, win! 

The facility currently produces 6,000 tonnes of pulp annually, with a target to scale to 60,000 tonnes. All that's needed now is the demand to match the ambition.

What would have been destined for landfill waits for its next purpose

Following the Mörrum mill tour, I was invited to visit the facility where textile waste bales are stored before making their way to the OnceMore® production line. Inside a massive open-air warehouse at the Karlshamn port, seemingly endless bales of tightly packed white cotton and multicoloured poly-cotton blend waste — each the size of a Mini Cooper — were stacked high and wide as far as I could see.

It was here that the stakes of brand demand became tangible. Without new OnceMore® pulp orders, these materials — diverted from landfill or incineration, but not yet transformed — simply wait. The technology exists. The feedstock is here. What moves it forward is demand.

Why scaling is crucial 

The fashion industry is among the largest drivers of pressure on the world's Ancient and Endangered Forest ecosystems. Biodiversity-rich lands are being logged at an unprecedented rate to meet demand for the cellulose fibres. At the same time, the textile waste problem is accelerating — blended fabrics that most recycling infrastructure can't process, accumulating faster than the industry has solutions. These aren't separate crises. They're the same system under pressure from both ends.

Next Generation Solutions like OnceMore®’s dissolving pulp continue to emerge behind factory doors and research labs — but simply put: innovations don't scale on their own. They scale when the people who source materials understand them well enough to demand them, and when the business case is concrete enough to act on. That gap between 'technically possible' and 'commercially adopted' is exactly where Canopy works — helping to educate, advise, and accelerate uptake to build brand demand, all while future-proofing an industry.

Next Gen Solutions are here

For many brands, regulatory compliance is no longer a distant risk — it is an immediate operational reality. The EU's incoming restrictions on textile waste going to landfill, the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and mounting pressure to demonstrate measurable circularity are reshaping procurement priorities faster than most sourcing strategies have caught up with.

Next Gen Solutions like OnceMore® process utilizing textile-to-textile (T2T) recycled pulp takes much of the guesswork out of that equation. By integrating recycled textile feedstock into dissolving pulp production, brands can advance circularity goals, stay on the right side of deforestation regulation, and reduce dependence on virgin forest fibre — all through a single drop-in solution.

The regulatory tailwind is only part of the whole story. The shift toward circular textile systems is also generating new economic activity, which means sorting facilities, collection infrastructure, and the skilled roles that come with them. The industry being built around textile waste recovery is an emerging value chain — and the brands that move early are best positioned to shape it.

Partnership is crucial 

Experiential opportunities like this are a reminder of why partnerships matter. Södra and the OnceMore® team didn't just open their facility doors — they opened the full value chain, from forest and storage facility floors to finished product, and invited the industry to ask the hard questions, see, touch, feel, and smell the innovation firsthand. 

For Canopy, that kind of transparency is the foundation on which everything else is built. The solutions the fashion industry needs are no longer waiting to be invented. They're running, they're scaling, and they're ready. What comes next is the market signal investment of hope for the industry to choose to do things differently, more circularly, for the health of our planet. 

Are you ready to learn more about how Next Gen Solutions like OnceMore® can future-proof your sourcing strategy? Join the movement.