The European Week for Waste Reduction will explore with its new edition the impact that the textile sector has on our planet. It will inspire not only citizens as consumers to take action by, for instance, changing their way of using and buying clothes, but also public authorities, private companies and NGOs to be protagonists in the transition to a more circular textile industry by promoting, supporting and guiding new solutions of production, use, disposal, and reuse of textile.

Why this focus on textiles?

The environmental challenges derived from textiles are many. From the perspective of European consumption, textiles have on average the fourth highest impact on the environment and climate change, after food, housing, and mobility. Global textiles production almost doubled between 2000 and 2015, and the consumption of clothing is expected to increase by 63% by 2030. To reduce the environmental impacts of textile sector, a shift on both production and consumption is very urgent. Furthermore, the often poor working conditions of this sector and human rights violations should be rigorously addressed.

On 30 March, the European Commission adopted the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles with the goal to reduce the huge impact of this sector on our planet and to build a new circular textile and clothing industry.

The Strategy proposes actions to be implemented during the entire lifecycle of textiles products, including the designing phase. The Commission’s 2030 Vision for Textiles consists of some main priorities:

• all textile products placed on the EU market are durable, repairable and recyclable, to a great extent made of recycled fibres, free of hazardous substances, produced in respect of social rights and the environment;
• “fast fashion is out of fashion” and consumers benefit longer from high quality affordable textiles;
• profitable re-use and repair services widely available;
• the textiles sector is competitive, resilient and innovative with producers taking responsibility for their products along the value chain with sufficient capacities for recycling and minimal incineration and land-filling.

Furthermore, the Strategy lays out a set of key actions for sustainable and circular textiles. Among them are: introducing mandatory Ecodesign requirements, stopping the destruction of unsold or returned textiles, tackling microplastic pollution, developing a Digital Product Passport, controlling and managing green claims for truly sustainable textiles, and defining harmonised EU Extended Producer Responsibility rules for textiles.

Infographics and communications materials on textiles, thematic focus of the next edition of the EWWR, will be available soon. Stay tuned!