With the recently adopted EU waste package Member States must assume important new obligations. These include ambitious recycling and landfill-reduction targets for 2030/2035, mandatory waste prevention measures and reinforced rules on separate collection of waste. With regards to selective collections schemes, Member States shall in particular ensure that by 1 January 2025 separate collection schemes are set up for textile waste produced by households. The new obligations have to be transposed in the national legislation within a 2-year period.
So far in the EU there is rather limited experience with separate collection of textiles as only 15 – 20 % are separately collected while the vast majority ends being landfilled or incinerated1. Furthermore, there are large differences among the different Member States in terms of how they manage this waste stream and the preformances they have. Apart from France – where a nationwide mandatory EPR scheme for textile products has been in place since 2008 –initiatives are scattered and mostly driven by charities or individual brand owners. If Member States are to successfully fulfill their new waste obligations, a more systemic and comprehensive approach and more involvement from public authorities will be needed to find effective solutions.
This EPR Club lunch debate hosted by ACR+ wishes to discuss the current situation and to explore potential solutions, with a particular focus on the role of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as a key instrument to help implement the requirement of separate collection of textiles in the new EU waste legislation.
The lunch debate will seek to address the following questions among others: How to finance the setting up of separate textile collection? What system set-up can support reuse of textiles? What are the economically viable models to address both aspects?
1 Rreuse (2017) – Social enterprises sorting out the textile waste problem
Event Overview
- Agenda
- Participant List
Additional Documents
- Emile Bruls, Rijkswaterstaat
- Mauro Scalia, EURATEX
- Pernilla Halldin, H&M Group
- Alain Claudot, EcoTLC
- Jana Žůrková, Rreuse