The EU and its member states are working on the architecture for a circular economy for textiles – but the envisaged underlying infrastructure is already collapsing in some cases, warned participants at a panel discussion at the IFAT tradeshow in early May. By the time the EU’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) system for textiles is in place, the current collection and recycling systems may no longer exist: Cheap new clothing is devaluing second-hand apparel, poor-quality stock is making sorting more expensive and recycling fibres is still not a viable substitute business.
Speaking at the panel discussion, Mariska Boer, president of the textiles division of the industry association Recycling Europe (formerly EuRIC) described the situation as a "perfect storm", fuelled by ultra-fast fashion suppliers such as Shein and Temu. "We need a radical change and we need it urgently."
"The collection and sorting system has always been able to finance itself through the revenues from reuse, but this system is heavily under pressure," said Ms Boer, who is the co-owner of Boer Group, one of the leading Dutch companies in textiles recovery. The input quality of collected stock was dropping, while the costs for manual sorting were rising every year, she noted.
At the same time, suppliers of second-hand textiles are also "facing heavy competition" from the same platforms whose cheap goods later end up in the collection streams. "A second-hand shop cannot sell a used Shein product when the store next door has the same product new for a third of the price," Ms Boer said.
Julia Schneider, a Green party member of the German federal parliament, stressed the political urgency of this problem. She said the system does not just need "fine-tuning" but is actually "structurally broken". EPR, which will make producers and retailers financially responsible for the treatment of textiles following their first use phase, and which is to be implemented into national law in EU countries by June of next year, must not come too late, she said. "If we wait until 2027 or beyond, we will risk establishing new regulations based on infrastructure that then no longer exists."
Without exports of second-hand clothing, Europe’s sorting and collection system "would cease to exist"
In the discussion, Ms Boer unterlined that exports are critical to the survival of the industry: "Without being able to serve a global market for second-hand clothing, the industry for collection and for sorting in Europe would cease to exist." She attributed this to the composition of the collected stock: Around half of the sorting inputs are suitable for reuse, but only a small share – approximately 10 per cent – can be marketed locally....
