![\"\n\nRecycling](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2023\/01\/clothes-shoes-800x450-1.jpg\")
The environmental impact of the textile industry is significant. A 2021 report<\/a> by the European Commission\u2019s Joint Research Centre found that around 4-6% of the EU\u2019s overall environmental footprint can be traced back to textiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To address this, the Commission presented in March 2022 an EU strategy for sustainable textiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the strategy, textiles placed on the European market would need to last longer, be easier to repair, and their lifetime would be extended by recycling the materials they contain into new high-quality products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Improving design at the manufacturing stage is also being considered to make recycling easier, with new standards expected to be adopted under the EU\u2019s ecodesign regulation<\/a>. The objective is that all textiles placed on the EU market are durable, repairable and recyclable, and made to \u201ca great extent\u201d from recycled fibres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The incorporation of minimum amounts of recycled fibres in new textile products is \u201creally quite promising,\u201d says Val\u00e9rie Boiten, senior policy officer at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity which works to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are different ISO standards out there, but for recyclability, not yet,\u201d she told EURACTIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe challenge is that a product\u2019s recyclability depends on several factors, including material choices, the way components are assembled, and the availability of infrastructure to collect, sort, and prepare the product for recycling,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recycling rates for textiles are currently rather low, with 1.7 to 2.1 million tonnes of used textiles collected annually throughout the EU, according to the JRC study. The majority of the remaining 3.3 to 3.7 million tonnes are thought to be discarded in mixed household waste, the study found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the data must be taken with \u201ca pinch of salt\u201d, Boiten argued, explaining that there is no Europe-wide obligation to report on the amount of textile collected from consumers or companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are obviously a lot of textiles that don\u2019t get collected separately and that simply end up in people\u2019s kitchen bins,\u201d Boiten explained, adding: \u201cWe do not have a comprehensive overview of these flows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU needs to introduce strict measures to slow overconsumption in the fast fashion industry and increase the recyclability of textiles in order to reach a zero waste and net zero economy by 2050, according to a new report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Textile recycling will also be greatly encouraged by a policy big bang, with new EU-wide waste collection and recycling targets kicking in as of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The revision of the EU\u2019s Waste Framework Directive requires EU countries to establish systems for the separate collection of textile waste by 1 January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the moment, there are no targets for collection, so there is no obligation for member states to report, with only 13 EU countries currently doing some reporting, the JRC report says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of these, only Austria, France, the Belgian region of Flanders and Italy report annually on post-consumer textile collection, while other countries have mapped them once or twice over the course of the past decade, often with the assistance of non-governmental bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, there is no clear definition for textiles or of what should be included in the reporting, which means figures are not comparable across EU countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recent EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles has not offered a definition or a description of the products that would be covered from a regulatory perspective. The EU Textile Regulation applies to \u201call products containing at least 80% by weight of textile fibres\u201d. But this definition would exclude the majority of footwear as well as accessories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSome might look at garments, some might look at garments and shoes, some might look at all possible textiles without really defining what a textile is. And I think that that\u2019s already an issue where there is no EU-wide definition of textiles and what products fall under textile,\u201d Boiten said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The upcoming revision of the EU Waste Framework Directive will also include a proposal to harmonise so-called extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes for textiles \u2013 which place an obligation on manufacturers to finance waste collection systems at local level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandatory EPR schemes can provide the funding needed to collect discarded textiles separately, and divert them from mixed municipal waste. They can also help finance the infrastructure needed for sorting and preparing textiles for reuse or recycling.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPolicy big bang<\/h3>\n\n\n\n