The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) has published insights on extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes for textiles in five key countries - Chile, Ghana, the Netherlands, France and the USA, EcoTextile reported.
Factsheets on the five countries are an update on the foundation's report earlier this year, 'Pushing the boundaries of EPR policy for textiles', which called for “unprecedented collaboration” globally on EPR.
Textile waste is a direct consequence of our linear economic system. Around the world, the vast majority of textiles (more than 80%) leak out of the system when they are discarded: they are incinerated, landfilled, or end up in the environment. Separate, dedicated textile collection systems are underdeveloped and do not capture all textiles placed on the market.
In our current textile system, most business models are linear: they are based on high volumes of new products, made from virgin resources, which are often used for a short time and then thrown away. Currently, products are not always designed to last and are often hard to recycle.
Separate collection is the only way to keep textiles from ending up in the waste stream or worse, the environment. But today, the economics of separate collection and sorting do not stack up. Collecting and managing discarded textiles happens at a cost (beyond textiles with high reuse value), and sorters around the world experience challenging profitability. This is a key barrier to achieving a circular economy for textiles.