According to the European Environment Agency, currently less than 1 % of all clothing waste is used to make new clothing in a circular way. In addition, most textiles are not designed in a manner that respects circularity principles and 78 % of all textile products require disassembling before textile-to-textile recycling. In order to support and drive technological and infrastructural development as well as the push for eco-design of textiles, investments into circular textiles should be promoted for the prevention, collection, sorting, re-use and local reuse, as well as recycling and fibre-to-fibre recycling of textiles. The total amount of waste textiles generated, including clothing and footwear, home textiles, technical textiles, and post-industrial and pre-consumer waste, is estimated to be 12,6 million tonnes. This includes fractions that are discarded during textile production, at the retail stage and by households and commercial entities as waste.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
