T e x t i l e I n d u s t r y N e w s o n r e u s e , r e c y c l i n g a n d c i r c u l a r i t y

Three signs that Europe is
rethinking circularity

Something is changing in the European debate about circular textiles.

For years, much of the focus has been on collecting more used clothes, controlling textile waste and increasing recycling. But several recent developments point towards a broader view.

Three shifts stand out.

Something is changing in the European debate about circular textiles. For years, much of the focus has been on collecting more used clothes, controlling textile waste and increasing recycling. But several recent developments point towards a broader view.

Three shifts stand out.

THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL TEXTILE WASTE REGULATION

How do you regulate a problem that may not exist?

Governments set out to regulate a global textile waste problem. But the Basel process has exposed a more basic uncertainty. The problem was never clearly defined and the trade was not fully understood.

The line between waste and reusable goods can be very difficult to draw, but that distinction will now shape the next phase of international regulation. It will also determine what happens to one of the world’s largest reuse markets.

The global second-hand trade is not a charity system. It is a business built on buying, sorting, shipping and reselling products across continents. Every bale imported into Ghana has already passed through collectors, sorters, exporters, shipping companies, customs, wholesalers and traders. At every stage, somebody pays.

What looks like textile waste is actually not. It's plastic.

Mountains textile waste. That image has travelled the world — repeated, amplified and turned into a defining narrative about textile waste in Africa. But when we went there, the picture changed completely. What had been described as textile waste was mostly something else.

How an unverified claim became a global truth and reshaped global policy

What happens when an unverified and disputed claim becomes the foundation for international policy? Policymakers seem to be addressing an imagined problem and putting one of the world's largest circular textile systems at risk along the way.

Former Swedish Minister for the Environment:

If the wrong conclusions are drawn, we will be in trouble

Related to the Basel Convention former Swedish Minister for the Environment Karolina Skog warns against drawing the wrong conclusion from an incomplete picture of the second-hand trade. If policy treats second-hand trade as waste export without solid evidence, it may damage one of the few circular textile systems already working at scale.