EU countries generated an estimated 6.95 million tonnes of textile waste in 2020 or around 16kg annually per person.
We've all seen the enormous dump sites filled to the brim with used clothing in developing nations. Currently, Czechia is taking the lead in Europe to address the issue rather than escalating it.
Only 3 to 4 percent of the 180,000 tonnes of textile waste that are wasted annually in Czechia end up in mixed garbage containers. While 75,000 tonnes are non-recyclable and polluted in mixed trash, 39,000 tonnes are sorted for recycling, Euronews reported.
The country has a plan, however, to revamp its current waste management practices. In December last year the Ministry of the Environment announced plans to enforce compulsory textile waste collection from 2025. At the moment, separate textile waste collection isn’t mandatory meaning a lot of discarded clothes which could be reused or recycled end up in landfill.
It aims to align the country with the European directive on waste management, according to Minister Petr Hladík. He emphasised that the goal is to ensure more textiles are recycled and increase the efficiency of recycling efforts.
Many textiles are thrown away in mixed garbage containers these days, which prevents them from being recycled. To assist residents in properly disposing of their textile waste, collection locations have been established throughout several towns as part of the strategy.
There are over 10,000 textile collection locations in the Czech Republic; however, the Waste Act in place only mandates collection—not recycling. throughout addition, the new plan aims to expand the number of collection sites for batteries and electrical waste throughout the nation, which are easily accessible locations like town halls or stores.
EU countries generated an estimated 6.95 million tonnes of textile waste in 2020 - that is around 16kg per person.
Of this, 4.4kg per person was collected separately for reuse and recycling but an overwhelming 11.6kg ended up in mixed household waste.
The main sources of the EU’s nearly 7 million tonnes of annual textile waste are clothing and household items (post-consumer waste). An estimated 4 to 9 per cent of products put on the market are also destroyed before they are ever used - between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes of textiles each year.
In more than half of EU states it is already mandatory to collect textiles separately but this mostly captures reusable textiles. Luxembourg and Belgium have the highest rates of separate textile collection in the bloc, closely followed by the Netherlands and Austria. Each has a diverse collection system across villages, towns and cities. None of them capture more than half of their textile waste though and the problem doesn’t stop with just collection.
The European Environment Agency says sorting and recycling capacities need to be scaled up or a considerable amount of this waste will continue to either end up in incinerators, landfill or exported outside of the EU.