ReTuna sells on what Eskilstuna drops off
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Since 28 August 2015, the Swedish town of Eskilstuna has had its own reuse shopping mall: ReTuna Återbruksgalleria, built right next to the municipal recycling centre. Residents drop off whatever can still be used, and the shops repair it and sell it on. In 2020 they sold 15.4 million kronor worth of reused goods.
The idea came from Eskilstuna Municipality, which wanted to be a green role model: a mall with ordinary shops but a second-hand or upcycled range, to reach a broad public and spread knowledge of the circular economy. The municipal council approved the project, construction began in August 2014 and ReTuna opened on 28 August 2015. The mall and the recycling centre next door belong to Eskilstuna Energi och Miljö, the municipal energy, water and waste company.
Everything starts at Returen, the covered depot at the entrance of the recycling centre. People drive through, cycle or walk in and leave toys, furniture, clothes, decorative items and electronics. Staff from AMA, the municipal unit for activity, motivation and work, do a first sort and share the items out among the shops. Each shop then makes its own selection and decides what to repair, transform and sell. Whatever finds no buyer goes back to the recycling centre next door. ReTuna containers also collect items at three other recycling centres in the region.
Seventeen shops and workshops fill the mall: IKEA Second Hand, the Stadsmission charity shop, an electronics repairer, a bike and sports shop, second-hand furniture dealers, a florist, a ceramics studio, a makerspace and a café. Sales rose from 11.7 million kronor in 2018 to 15.4 million in 2020, almost 92% more than at opening, and the mall has created more than fifty jobs. Eskilstuna Folk High School teaches its one-year course “Recycle Design, Återbruk” on the premises. Guinness World Records listed ReTuna in 2020 as the world’s first reuse mall, and on 26 May 2026 Retail Technology named it circular retailer of the year.
The current project is about buildings. Through the European project Waste to Value, funded by the Interreg Central Baltic programme with 2.67 million euros out of 3.33 million and led by Emmaus Åland since August 2025, ReTuna is opening a space for construction materials. Återbygget, a company from Västerås, sells doors, kitchenettes, toilets, washbasins and taps taken out of buildings due for renovation or demolition. “Why do I put plastic in the right bin when whole houses can be thrown in the wrong one?” asks its CEO, Pelle Holst. Simon Glimtoft, who runs the mall, points out that such materials “end up in landfill”.
ReTuna is open every day, Monday to Friday from 10 am to 6 pm and at weekends from 10 am to 4 pm. By 2019, delegations from 25 countries and almost every Swedish municipality had come to see it. The guided tour lasts about an hour and goes behind the scenes: the history of the project, how the mall works and what comes next. It costs from 1,996 kronor excluding VAT per group and per hour; groups of more than twenty may be split in two. The mall also rents out meeting rooms.
Opened on 28 August 2015 next to Eskilstuna’s recycling centre, ReTuna sells only reused, repaired or sustainably produced goods. Its shops sold 15.4 million kronor worth of goods in 2020, almost 92% more than at opening, and the mall has created more than fifty jobs. Delegations from 25 countries had visited by 2019.
Photos: © Lina Östling, ReTuna Återbruksgalleria (1 2 3 4 5).
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