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.

1. Second-hand is booming – but the industry is struggling

Consumers are increasingly buying second-hand clothes. Resale platforms have grown rapidly, charity shops remain important and second-hand fashion has moved into the mainstream. But behind the consumer boom, the industry that collects, sorts and prepares used clothes for reuse is struggling.

Several things are happening at the same time.

Large volumes of very cheap new clothes continue to enter the European market. They compete directly with second-hand goods and, sooner or later, many of them also enter collection systems.

At the same time, more textiles are being collected. But collecting more does not necessarily mean collecting more clothes with a second-hand value. Poorer-quality garments cost money to collect and sort even when there is little or no revenue at the end of the process.

This matters because the economics of textile sorting have traditionally depended heavily on the better garments.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has noted that the highest-quality share of collected textiles generates much of the value that makes sorting economically viable.

Europe is also introducing new rules for collection and producer responsibility. These systems could eventually bring substantial new funding into the sector. But their design will determine whether that money supports reuse or mainly pays for waste handling and recycling.

The result is an important paradox.

Second-hand can be growing as a consumer market while the infrastructure that supplies that market becomes harder to finance. That is one reason why the current discussion about circularity is becoming broader than simply collecting more textiles.

2. Textile recycling is still tiny – and attention is shifting towards keeping clothes in use

Textile-to-textile recycling is often presented as an important part of the future circular textile economy.

But today, it barely exists at scale.

The European Environment Agency has cited estimates that less than one percent of textile waste is recycled into new fibres for clothing. Much of what is currently described as textile recycling instead turns textiles into lower-value products such as insulation or wiping cloths. This is an important starting point.

Europe is building collection systems that will produce much larger textile flows, while the technology and markets needed to turn those textiles back into new clothing remain very limited. At the same time, more policymakers and researchers are asking whether recycling has received too much attention in the first place.

A new programme funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and UK Research and Innovation warns that an excessive focus on recycling can help maintain a system based on overproduction and high consumption. It instead puts more emphasis on longer product life, repair, reuse and functioning second-hand markets.

France is testing a similar approach.

A programme run by the French ecological transition agency ADEME is looking at whether progress should be measured through fewer new clothes entering the market, longer use and more repair rather than simply through larger collection volumes. This shift is especially relevant in light of another problem.

A considerable part of the European policy debate has focused on concerns that large quantities of textile waste are being exported as second-hand clothing. But the scale of that problem has still not been robustly established.

The European Environment Agency itself acknowledges that official trade data cannot reliably distinguish reusable second-hand textiles from textile waste. It describes the lack of a clear distinction, together with differences in how countries classify these flows, as major weaknesses in the available data.

The European Commission is also supporting further international research to establish, among other things, how much waste may actually be moving within the used-textile trade.

Against that background, the growing interest in reuse and longer product life marks an important change of perspective. A jacket that is worn for another five years remains a jacket. Once it is shredded into fibre, most of its value as a product has already been lost.

Recycling will be needed for textiles that can no longer be used. But with textile-to-textile recycling still below one percent, keeping usable products in use is not a marginal part of circularity.

It is currently the much larger circular option.

3. Policymakers are starting to look at what enters the system – not only what comes out

The third shift is happening further upstream.

Much of textile policy has focused on what happens after people stop using their clothes: collection, sorting, export, recycling and waste treatment. Now policymakers are also beginning to look at the flow of new clothes entering the market.

France has introduced a new environmental charge aimed specifically at ultra-fast fashion.

The European Union is tightening rules for low-value e-commerce imports and making online platforms more responsible for the products they bring into Europe.

Early data from the Netherlands already shows how quickly the market can react. Small parcel volumes fell sharply after new charges were introduced, although some trade appears to have shifted towards bulk imports and warehouses inside Europe.

It is therefore too early to know whether these measures will actually reduce the number of cheap new clothes being sold. But the change in focus is significant.

Instead of concentrating almost entirely on how to manage textile waste after it appears, policymakers are beginning to address one of the forces creating the growing flow in the first place: extremely large volumes of cheap new clothing. That matters directly for reuse.

Cheap new garments compete with second-hand goods on price. And when large volumes of low-value clothing eventually enter collection systems, they can make sorting and resale more difficult and expensive.

Reducing that flow could therefore affect the whole chain – from consumption and second-hand sales to collection, sorting, recycling and waste.

It also changes the nature of the policy discussion.

Instead of trying to solve a circularity problem mainly at the waste stage – including through increasingly detailed rules for classifying and controlling used textiles – governments are beginning to intervene before the waste is created.

A broader idea of circularity

These three developments are different, but they point in the same direction.

The second-hand boom is revealing that growing consumer demand does not automatically create a financially healthy reuse system. The limitations of textile recycling are bringing renewed attention to the much simpler option of keeping products in use.

And policymakers are beginning to address the flow of new products entering the market instead of focusing almost entirely on what happens at the end.

This broader perspective also matters because increasingly detailed policy is being developed around textile waste at a time when some important parts of the underlying problem are still not well quantified – including how much of Europe’s used-clothing exports is actually waste.

Circularity may therefore be moving towards a more basic idea. Not simply collecting more. Not simply recycling more. But producing less waste, keeping useful products in use and preserving their value for as long as possible.