Europe’s capacity for textile recycling mapped

Europes capacity for textile recycling mapped

Published: Less than 40 min ago

fullscreen Good collection routines and sorting as well as a steady flow of sorted textiles to the recycling companies, in order to produce new clothes. Photo: Swedish Environmental Institute

Eleven kilos of textiles per person are thrown away annually in Europe. But the capacity to recycle more textiles in Europe is great. This shows a survey of around 30 players in the sorting and recycling of post-consumer textiles in Europe that has been carried out within the research project Sustainable clothing of the future. The actors are located all over Europe and have promising techniques to be able to take care of our textile waste.

– We consume way too much clothes and use them too few times before they are thrown away. It is a huge waste of resources, says Maja Dahlbom, project manager at IVL Swedish Environmental Institute.

Of all the clothes that are produced, only about one (1) percent is currently made from recycled textiles. Around 16,000-25,000 tonnes of what is recycled becomes new clothes.

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