Fast and ultra-fast fashion are tangling the world in unmanageable amounts of textile waste.
Global textile fibre production has more than doubled since 2000. In 2022, 8.5 million tonnes of textiles were consumed in the EU – an average of 19 kg per person, enough to fill a large suitcase. Increasing clothing sales volumes means more items are being discarded, and at a faster pace: 16 kg of textile waste per person is generated annually in the EU. Soaring amounts of surplus garments with low resale value are driving textile collectors, sorters, reuse operators, and recyclers to a breaking point.
Across Europe, the pressure is such that some textile reuse and recycling operators have no choice but to shut down their activities. At the same time as the separate collection of textiles became mandatory across the EU, donations of low-quality textiles with no resale value became so unmanageable that, in many municipalities, clothes containers are being closed or removed. Meanwhile, a staggering 73% of EU textiles end up landfilled or incinerated. Communities in countries to which our discarded textiles are exported are also heavily impacted by large amounts of imported clothing that cannot be sold, causing major social and environmental problems.
Municipalities and social economy actors need urgent support to cope with this crisis. The targeted revision of the Waste Framework Directive offers that opportunity, as Member States now have until April 2028 to establish Extended Producer Responsibility schemes to make producers pay for the cost of managing textile waste. Yet, its potential and ability to truly address the ongoing crisis will depend heavily on how inclusive, ambitious, and grounded in realities the EPR scheme will be designed, as well as how fast it will be implemented.
The event will delve into various perspectives, examining which measures can effectively support the second-hand sector in the EU, as well as the regions heavily impacted by EU used textile exports.
The event is organised by the European Environmental Bureau, RREUSE, and Zero Waste Europe in the framework of the Sustainable Textile Working Group of the European Parliament and is co-hosted by MEP Saskia Bricmont and MEP Delara Burkhardt.
