European waste industry association FEAD said the European Commission's strategy for sustainable and circular textiles will help to make sustainable products the norm across the EU. FEAD said it strongly supported the introduction of binding product-specific eco-design requirements to increase textiles performance in terms of durability, reusability, reparability, fibre-to-fibre recyclability and the introduction of mandatory recycled fibre content.
But such aims would require significant efforts in research and innovation because textile recycling was “still at the very beginning, especially in relation to fibre-to-fibre recycling”. Mandatory recycled content requirements would "trigger needed investments and support the aim of the [European] Commission to encourage businesses to prioritise their efforts on fibre-to-fibre recycling", FEAD said.
But it said the current global trend for fast fashion, using “over-abundant, very low-quality textiles production” presented a big hurdle to more recycling and should be tackled at EU level. The Commission in February proposed a mandatory extended producer responsibility scheme for textiles to help prevent waste from fast fashion.
