The EU has not set specific targets for recycled content in clothing, but by 2030 it aims for all textile products sold in the EU to be “to a large extent” made from recycled content. from recycled fibers, while being durable, repairable and recyclable.
In a warehouse in the suburbs of Barcelona, women in front of conveyor belts manually sort t-shirts, jeans and dresses big bales of used clothes, a small step towards solving the serious problem of discarded fashion in Europe.
Within a year, the sorting center run by clothing reuse and recycling charity Moda Re plans to double the handling of volumes up to 40,000 tons metrics per year.
“This is just the beginning,” said Albert Alberich, director of Moda Re, which is part of the Spanish charity Cáritas and runs Spain’s largest second-hand clothing chain.
“We will transform more and more used clothes into European raw materials for fashion companies.”
Funded in part by Inditex, owner of Zara, Moda Re will expand its facilities in Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia, in some of the first signs of a planned increase in sorting capacity, clothing processing and recycling in response to a barrage of new proposals from the European Union aimed at curbing the fashion industry.
Also in Spain, competitors such as H&M, Mango and Inditex have created a non-profit organization to manage clothing waste, in response to a European law which obliges Member States to separate textiles from other waste from January 2025.
Despite these efforts, less than a quarter of 5.2 million tons of clothing waste in Europe are recycled and millions of tons end up in landfills every year, the European Commission said in July.
Precise data on the increase in clothing waste is scarce, but collection for recycling and reuse has gradually increased in several European countries since around 2010, according to a 2021 EU report.
Fast fashion, or the making and selling of cheap clothes with a short lifespan, is “highly unsustainable” , the Commission said in July. The textile industry is one of the major contributors to climate change and environmental damage, he pointed out.
Inditex, which said in March it had placed a 10% more clothes on the global market last year that in 2021, it aims to use 40% recycled fibers in clothing by 2030 as part of the sustainability targets announced in July.
“The main problem we face is Excessive consumption said Dijana Lind, sustainability analyst at Union Investment, a Frankfurt-based asset manager that owns shares in Adidas, Hugo Boss, Inditex and H&M.
Lind said he interacted with Adidas, Hugo Boss and Inditex about the need for those companies. increase your use of recycled textiles and that the apparel industry as a whole increases textile recycling.
Hugo Boss said in a statement to Reuters that “overproduction and overconsumption is, in general, an industry-wide problem”, adding that he used the data analysis to better adjust production to demand.
will be needed between 6,000 and 7,000 million euros of investment by 2030 to create the scale of textile waste processing and recycling that the EU aspires to, consultancy firm McKinsey estimated in a report last year. Reuters was unable to determine what level of investment was currently being made in the industry.
Lind said the companies have taken some first steps, but “there is still a long way to go.”
Inditex has announced that it will invest 3.5 million euros in Moda Re in three years old and had recycling bins in all its Spanish stores. He did not respond to a request for comment on the suggestion he needed to do more.
In a statement to Reuters, H&M said it recognized this was “part of the problem”.
“The way fashion is produced and consumed needs to change; this is an undeniable truth,” H&M said.
obstacles
Obstacles to a significant reduction in the waste of clothes is great despite EU crackdown, industry commitments to sustainability and initiatives like the expansion of Moda Re.
Hundreds of similar plants will be needed, as well as investments in technology and interventions in the market, to meet the industry goal of recycling 2.5 million tonnes of textile waste by 2030, McKinsey said in the report.
Fourteen textile recycling companies in Europe plans to increase its production capacity according to Fashion for Good, a new recycled fiber investment firm that surveyed 57 recyclers in a September 2022 report.
EU has not set specific targets for recycled content in clothing, but he wants by 2030 all textile products sold in the bloc will be “to a large extent” made from recycled fibers, as well as being durable, repairable and recyclable.
To build the capacity needed to achieve these goals, Rehubs Europe, an association set up by textile lobby group EURATEX, is promoting investment in fiber-to-fiber recycling: processes that convert yarn used clothes to make new textiles.
EURATEX did not immediately respond to a question from Reuters about the level of investment being made in the technology.
Currently, less than 1% of clothing is recycled in this way and the processes are still under development. Challenges include separating different types of fibers into suitable raw materials for recycling.
Since these techniques are still in their infancy, the higher cost of recycled fabric compared to new fabric remains an obstacle to their widespread adoption.
flooded africa
Clothes over 7,000 donation containers in supermarkets and Zara and Mango stores . Infrared machines offered by Inditex identify the fiber composition of garments to speed up sorting, which is largely manual.
Currently, around 40% of the clothes Moda Re receives it is sent to other facilities for recycling. Of this amount, only a fifth is recycled fiber by fiber, a proportion that Moda Re hopes to reach 70% in the next three to four years.
For the moment, most of the recycling is for lower quality products, like kitchen towels.
Almost half of the clothes donated to Moda Re are sent for resale in African countries such as Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal. Moda Re claims that the clothes it exports can be reused.
According to United Nations trade data, the EU exported 1.4 million tonnes of used textiles in 2022, more than double the figure in 2000. All these clothes are not reused and exports of used clothes from Europe to Africa can cause pollution when clothes that cannot be resold end up in landfills, the EU said.
The rules proposed by the European Commission aim crack down on dishonest operators that export damaged items destined for landfills, and would require countries to demonstrate their ability to manage these materials sustainably.
Moda Re said its goal is to reduce the volume of clothes it sends to Africa.
Currently, only 8% of donations are resold in Moda Re thrift stores, widely regarded method as the most efficient way to reuse old clothes. A similar amount ends up in European landfills.
The company intends double the amount you resell by expanding to 300 stores second-hand cars in Spain over the next three years, up from just over 100 today, he told Reuters.
Despite the challenges, Moda Re employees said they felt their work was positive.
“We collect clothes that have been thrown away to make new ones,” says Aissatou Boukoum, a young worker from Senegal, as she feeds the clothes into a machine that cuts them into ribbons for recycling. “It’s good for me”.
corporate responsibility
In addition to Inditex’s efforts, Puma has partnered with clothing collection and sorting companies I:CO in Germany, Texaid in Switzerland and Vestisosolidale in Italy.
Adidas, Bestseller and H&M have invested in Finnish start-up Infinited Fiber Company, which manufactures fibers from textile waste, cardboard and paper.
The Commission’s legislative dynamic includes rules allowing retailers to contribute to the costs to collect used clothing for reuse and recycling.
Under the proposed rules, retailers would pay a fee of approximately 12 euro cents per item for each garment sold on the block, with higher rates for harder-to-recycle garments, the Commission estimated in July.
As in Spain, in every country Textile waste associations would be created. In France, this system has already existed since 2008 within an organization called Refashion.
Reuters asked 10 major fashion companies, including Adidas, H&M and Primark, how the tariffs would affect their profitability. None provided an estimate. All said they expected the rates to be the same across the EU.
“It’s a tsunami of legislation,” said Mauro Scalia, director of sustainable affairs at EURATEX.
Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
