Clothing sold in Europe must be longer-lasting, easier to repair and its journey to point of sale traceable, under the new EU textiles strategy proposed by the EU Commission.
The Commission is presenting the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles aimed at making textiles more durable, repairable, reusable and recyclable, to tackle fast fashion, textile waste and the destruction of unsold textiles, and ensure their production takes place in full respect of social rights.
The move is part of the EU Green Deal which proposes to make sustainable products “the norm in the EU”, boost circular business models and empower consumers for the green transition. . As announced in the Circular Economy Action Plan, the Commission is proposing new rules to make almost all physical goods on the EU market more friendly to the environment, circular, and energy-efficient throughout their whole lifecycle from the design phase through to daily use, repurposing and end-of-life.
Manufacturers will have to ensure their clothes are eco-friendly and long-lasting and consumers will be given more information on how to reuse, repair and recycle clothing.
The EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles sets out the vision and concrete actions to ensure that by 2030 textile products placed on the EU market are long-lived and recyclable, made as much as possible of recycled fibres, free of hazardous substances and produced in respect of social rights and the environment.
Consumers will benefit longer from high-quality textiles, fast fashion should be out of fashion, and economically profitable re-use and repair services should be widely available.
In a competitive, resilient and innovative textiles sector, producers have to take responsibility for their products along the value chain, including when they become waste. In this way, the circular textiles ecosystem will be thriving, and be driven by sufficient capacities for innovative fibre-to-fibre recycling, while the incineration and landfilling of textiles has to be reduced to the minimum.
