The EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles includes initiatives focused on eco-design standards, but also waste reduction, with the EU Waste Framework Directive being a key component. Could you summarize this directive for us in, let’s see, only three words?

“Well, we want to reduce textile waste generation, we want to recycle it in a high-quality way, and this is a combined effort and so the third word that we want to do is to increase circularity. Reduction, recycling and circularity.
The thing is we have, we are exposed in reality with this so-called fast or hyper-fast fashion in textile, in the textile world, that means we roughly generate per year in the EU 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste and only 22% out of this textile waste is separately collected. So that means the 78% is directly lost and going into landfill or incineration which is very, very poor in terms of environmental performance.
What we want to achieve is to increase the reuse and the recycling of textile waste generated and for this, we come up with several and very concrete legislative measures or strategies that should increase reuse and increase the high-quality recycling of textiles.”

Could you explain in more detail what the directive is about?

“The starting point is that in order to have the textile waste really, let’s say, transformed into a value chain, not a waste disposal chain… the starting point is that you have a separate collection of these textiles. And then, when you have them separately collected, you need professional sorting so that you can decide which can go into direct into reuse or preparation of reuse… and which the remainder to go into recycling. And this recycling we also want not only currently… mainly going into a downcycling, but we want to really to have this so-called to increase the so-called fiber-to-fiber recycling so that the cotton or the polyester can go back into a polyester application.”

Which sectors or stakeholders will be affected by the directive? And in what ways? And also starting from when exactly?

“We have already in the current legislation the requirement that all member states must ensure a separate collection of textiles as of next year, as of 1st January ’25. And now the next step is… based on this separate collection, we require that this separately collected waste is professionally sorted. And then the very important second crucial pillar is that we impose for very important dedicated textile kinds of textiles and shoes, footwear, the so-called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems. That means it’s a polluter-pays principle that we establish for the textiles. The producer who places the textile on the market… they must pay already for each textile under the scope of this EPR system… the cost of the end-of-life treatment. So that means he must pay the costs in this so-called EPR fee already: the costs for the collection… and then the sorting, and then the recycling or reuse.”

In your view, what are the biggest challenges you foresee in implementing the updated directive, especially in terms of compliance and enforcement, for example?

“The starting point is already very challenging… we need the sorting capacity. The first step is already a big challenge: to have throughout Europe to build up these sorting, I mentioned the importance of professional sorting plants for these textiles. Because… the EPR systems that we collect the money from the producers to cover these costs will only kick in later because it’s a proposal that we came up with last year and will only enter into force next year at the best. So therefore, the money is not yet there today to ensure these investments in the sorting. And then, in the second step after the sorting, to have this high-quality recycling… because we know already what is dumped or discarded as of next year, all this separate is still the ‘old style’ designed textiles and not yet those according to the eco-design rules that we will only establish later. So the textile waste that comes in at first will still be hard to recycle in a high-quality recycling, and that’s the second challenge.”

We’ve talked about countries and businesses, but how do you think these changes will impact consumers in their everyday lives and choices?

“Well, to be honest, we cannot with the EPR fee on a T-shirt of let’s say 10 cents, we will not fight fast fashion. I think the consumers will realize the separate waste collection… member states will make campaigns and so they will realize that there is a bigger effort to have a separate collection. And then also… they might also see at least that there is more recyclable waste. And the third element where the consumer might realize it that he will be aware that we have more reusable, more second-hand textiles even on our own, even on the European market. We want to also… (include) clear measures to control a little bit this export, fake exports of second-hand textiles which are in fact waste textiles. And this is also something which will imply for the European consumers that we have on the other hand more second-hand products that might be interesting. We have also more concrete measures to make it a little bit more attractive to go to a second-hand shop and to get this a little bit out of the niche.”