Towards sustainable textile waste management

The fashion industry faces a critical waste problem. In the EU, 12.6m tonnes of textile waste are generated every year, 80% of post-consumer waste ends up in landfill and 1.7m tonnes of used textiles are exported to countries in the global south that are unable to manage the large volume of textiles in environmentally-sound ways. 

There was an increase in 2023 in consumers using peer-to-peer resale and rental platforms, and more brands adopting circular business models (offering customers take-back schemes, repair and second-hand options) to extend the life of products. But more drastic measures are necessary to catch up with the rapidly increasing rates of post-consumer textile waste. 

Globally, governments are recognising the importance of comprehensive textile waste management solutions. The EU has been leading the way with the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (March 2022) – presenting a wave of legislation to crack down on the industry’s environmentally harmful and wasteful activities. The proposed regulations stipulate that textile products sold on the EU market must adhere to eco-design standards (promoting sustainability at the product design phase). They must also follow digital product passport rules to facilitate greater transparency along the supply chain. 

Additionally, eco-labelling rules aim to improve brands’ and retailers’ validity of sustainability claims and empower consumers in decision-making. The most significant transformation is expected to be driven by the mandatory, harmonised extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme for textiles across the EU.

EPR mandates that producers are responsible for the full lifecycle of textile products, including disposal and recycling. Producers are held accountable as they are required to pay a fee based on the environmental performance of their products – a principle known as eco-modulation. The collected fees will finance investments into collection, sorting, re-use and recycling capacities to support the sustainable management of textile waste across the EU. 

Member states will be required to collect textiles separate from other waste by 2025 and eco-modulation fees will gradually be introduced by 2030. Eco modulation is a process of rewarding those who use environmentally less-impactful materials and vice versa. EPR aims to increase recycling rates and materials reused – lowering the industry’s overall impact. Currently only 22% of post-consumer textile waste is collected separately for re-use or recycling and less than 1% of materials is being recycled into new clothing in the EU.

As the fashion and textiles industry gets to grips with this new legislative landscape, the textile recycling sector is faced with the challenge to scale and innovate. Attention has particularly focused on the potential of fibre-to-fibre recycling – the recycling process that breaks down products to its fibre level to make recycled yarns for new products, thus reducing the extraction of virgin materials. Fibre-to-fibre recycling can utilise mechanical and/or chemical processes depending on where the fibre will be re-integrated into the fashion supply chain. 

Mechanical recycling is a well-established method that uses physical processing techniques to shred pre- and post-consumer textiles into small pieces to make new recycled fibres. These recycled fibres have characteristics of a lower strength than virgin fibres, and they generally cannot be recycled again unless mixed with virgin materials. 

In chemical recycling, chemical processes are used to separate blended fabrics to produce recycled fibres that have the same strength and performance as virgin fibres, enabling them to be recycled multiple times. Chemical recycling, however, is less widely used than mechanical processes, and is currently undergoing research and development to expand the fibre blends it is able to recycle. 

Fibre-to-fibre recycling could have a significant impact to accelerate textile recycling – estimates indicate that 70% of textile waste could be fibre-to-fibre recycled once the technology is fully mature. However, it faces barriers to operating at scale. Identifying and addressing these challenges is essential to optimise long term textile waste management solutions.

For such technology to make a difference at scale, better data on available feedstock is vital. However, a report by the Ellen MacArthur foundation notes that there is currently no requirement at the EU level for reporting on the collection and treatment of post-consumer textiles. Strengthening data collection (on collection rates and material flows) at the industry level will help to inform where interventions and funding are necessary and capture the impact of new legislation. 

Given the complexity and diversity of global supply chains in the fashion and textiles industry, gathering this data can be logistically challenging. TrusTrace - a platform that uses technology to standardise how supply chain and material traceability data is captured for brands and suppliers - recognises that data is crucial to inform a circular system. 

Anja Sadock, head of marketing at TrusTrace, says there is a significant increase in the sector in terms of both interest in and the understanding of the need for collecting data with increased granularity to meet the coming information requirements set for the EU market. “In preparing for this major shift, and to enable a higher level of circularity, it’s time to further collect and structure data and look at the information requirements, both voluntary or mandatory, which will all ultimately contribute to a more circular value chain,” she says. 

The lack of infrastructure and capabilities for collection, sorting and processing high volumes of textiles, in a cost-effective manner, is a key barrier that is limiting recycling rates. Currently, in the EU, the existing systems for separate collection of textiles are voluntary, and only focus on collecting clothing for reuse purposes. 

For fibre-to-fibre recycling, after collection, products must also be sorted to remove non-textile components such as buttons and zippers, and categorised by material composition. The integration of automated sorting technologies that use artificial intelligence and machine learning could have a major role to play to accelerate this process, which is generally conducted manually. However, this comes with high development and implementation costs. 

One of the projects currently active in the space is the Smart Garment Sorting System, an H&M Foundation funded research project that is testing the use of visual technology to automatically classify garments by type, material composition and structure with high accuracy and speed.

EPR's eco-modulation fees are crucial for funding development in this area. Analysis by McKinsey & Company estimates that capital expenditure investments in the range of €6-7bn would be needed by 2030 to scale fibre-to-fibre recycling. A recent report from climate NGO WRAPhighlights that brands and retailers should invest in establishing partnerships with recyclers to attract the investment needed to scale recycling technologies. 

While funding for research and development will be essential to innovate technologies, adjusting current design practices to create products with recyclability in mind could also support a more circular system and make recycling more feasible. 

Supply chain collaboration and information sharing on the current and future state of recycling technology is required to ensure the materials and chemicals input at the design stage are appropriate for recycling processes. For example, some products are currently made with unknown fibre blends, which is particularly problematic in chemical recycling processes, and can limit its effectiveness. 

This is where, if implemented effectively, eco-design standards could encourage informed decision-making about the recyclability attributes of a product. And, digital product passports could ensure greater availability of product data to allow information sharing between designers and recyclers. 

Collaboration is, as ever, key. Florian Heubrandner, executive vice-president for commercial textiles at the Lenzing Group recognises “the pivotal role of collaboration with value chain partners in driving sustainable practices within the fashion and textiles industry”. Lenzing works with textile recyclers, mill partners and brands, to leverage “collective expertise and resources to reduce waste throughout the supply chain” he says. 

The proposed EU legislation and EPR schemes aim to ensure textile waste is responsibly managed and current recycling rates are increased. Emerging fibre-to-fibre and chemical recycling technology present a significant opportunity to manage the millions of tonnes of textile waste resulting from the fashion industry’s current linear economy. As EPR regulations comes into effect from 2025, scaling up and ensuring recycling technologies and processes are economically viable at scale is crucial. 

However, success hinges, too, on more sophisticated collection, sorting and processing of textile waste, where AI and automation can play a significant role. Notwithstanding advancing technology to be able to handle multiple fibre blends requires further research. EPR regulation and eco-modulation fees will be key to help fund these systems and infrastructures and facilitate industry-wide collaboration to ensure products are designed for circularity and partnerships are formed to enable this paradigm shift.