As the EU implements its strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has presented a comprehensive study of the management options for used and waste textiles in the EU. In addition to summarising various recycling, recovery and disposal options for textiles, it also analyses material flows, capacities for textile recycling and existing barriers to recycling.
According to the report, more than 8 million tonnes of used textiles are incinerated or sent to landfill in the EU each year. Some 2.4 million tonnes of used and waste textiles are separately collected each year, whereas the sorting capacity is just 1.8 million tonnes per year, the study’s authors estimate. Consequently, a significant share of the separately collected textiles are exported to third countries for sorting, reuse and/or recycling. "Export is also the dominant fate of sorted textiles; it is estimated that about 48 per cent of the textiles are exported to third countries following sorting in the EU,” the study found....
