Only 1 % of all clothing is recycled into re-usable textile fibres today, while 73 % ends up in landfill. Now the European Union is making fashion companies responsible for their textile waste, a project in Belgium may help them by showing ways to significantly increase the value of discarded textiles.
From waste to raw material
The European Union has made separate textile collection mandatory since this year and is also rolling out extended producer responsibility (EPR) for textiles. This means that fashion companies will soon have to pay for the collection and recycling of used clothing. Fortunately, a project in collaboration with Belgian secondhand shops has shown ways to extract thirty times more value from these waste streams!
