Ambitious Sillamäe textile waste plant project struggling to survive
A textile waste recycling plant planned for Sillamäe, which the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency had promised to support with €39 million, is now looking for ways to survive, Postimees writes.
According to the newspaper, the technology for which funding was requested from the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EIS) — and which EIS approved — turned out to be a bluff and the project's promoter a bluffer: there was no product, no certificates and no substantive business plan, only slick talk about the circular economy and the green transition, along with an impressive PowerPoint presentation.
By now, the original founder has been bought out of the project and the remaining shareholders are trying to salvage what they can. However, the project's lead, Markus Hääl, still described it as promising, saying cooperation is underway with Aalto University and that an extension has been requested from EIS.
When Postimees spoke with EIS about the matter a few weeks ago, officials confirmed that they also believe the Sillamäe project is still alive. However, EIS' response sounded less enthusiastic than it did a year ago: the agency now emphasizes that there is still time and that innovative projects are inherently risky, but the earlier optimism is no longer evident.
In January 2025, EIS announced it would grant €39 million from the Just Transition Fund to a company planning a roughly €100 million investment. The project involved establishing a textile waste sorting and shredding center producing construction boards from textile fibers and building a factory to manufacture construction panels.
The three companies planning to process textile waste had a shared shareholder, Greenful Holding B.V., led by former payday loan entrepreneur Toomas Allikas.
Last September, ERR reported that by then Greenful Holding B.V.'s stake had shrunk from 49 percent to just 2.3 percent.
According to sources cited by Äripäev, the reason for the company becoming a minor shareholder was partners' dissatisfaction that it had not contributed to covering hundreds of thousands of euros in costs related to permit applications and other activities, had failed to fulfill a promise to bring international investors into the project and that Allikas' previous personal bankruptcy had made it more difficult to obtain bank loans.
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Editor: Mirjam Mäekivi, Marcus Turovski
Source: Postimees, Äripäev
