#Recycling / Circular Economy

2025-04-29

Practical, market-driven End-of-Waste criteria are key to textile circularity

As the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) works on the development of harmonised End-of-Waste (EoW) criteria for textiles, EuRIC, the voice of Europe’s recycling industries, calls for an approach that is practical, market-driven, and innovation-friendly.

EoW criteria must reflect the realities of textile collection, sorting, and recycling to enable a truly circular textiles value chain. Valuable textiles – including workwear, technical items, or garments with minor defects (i.e. missing buttons, or small stains) – must not be excluded from reuse or recycling due to overly rigid definitions or current technological limitations. Trusted and trained sorting operators are best placed to determine reusability based on real market demand.

Sorters and recyclers must not be administratively burdened with disproportionate requirements. The sector needs quality assurance frameworks that are realistic and easy to implement, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Support for the JRC proposed approach that grants the EoW for recycling status afterthe recycling process, in line with the Waste Framework Directive, which defines recycling as “any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances." While sorting for recycling is an essential step, output materials of this operation are intermediate fractions that still need to undergo recycling and should not be eligible for EoW status. As recommended by the JRC for the mechanical recycling, EoW status shall be granted at the point at which the output material is either ready to be used directly as a textile product or is ready to be used for the production of new textile products.

Recyclers cannot be held responsible for unknown chemical content in post-consumer textiles, and red tape must be avoided. An approach should be found that ensures compliance with the chemicals legislation without harming the textiles circular economy, and by considering the challenges of tracking thousands of substances in post-consumer textiles.

The EoW framework must actively support innovation. This includes enabling R&D through targeted exemptions for small volumes of textile waste, allowing the testing of new materials and recycling processes under safe conditions, without being blocked by rigid standards.

A successful EoW framework must reduce barriers - not create new ones. The future of textile recycling in Europe depends on smart rules that empower sorters & recyclers, drive investment, and unlock the full potential of circularity.

The European Recycling Conference 2025 heads to Hamburg

The European Recycling Conference (ERC) is coming to Hamburg, Germany, on 1 October 2025. This year’s edition, co-organised with EuRIC’s German members BDSV, bvse, and VDM, will explore the topic of “Building a competitive market for recycled materials”, and their critical role in delivering on the EU’s Competitiveness Compass and Clean Industrial Deal objectives.

Recover™ launches Recover™ Fabrics to accelerate recycled cotton adoption

Recover™, a leading materials science company and one of the world’s largest producers of recycled cotton fiber, today announced the launch of Recover™ Fabrics, a new product line designed to make premium, low-impact fabrics readily accessible to brands of all sizes, from global retailers to emerging labels.

Nike becomes anchor customer for Loop Industries’ Infinite Loop™ India facility

Loop Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq:LOOP) (“Loop”), a clean technology company accelerating the circular economy, today announced a multi-year offtake agreement with NIKE, Inc. (“Nike”), the global leader in athletic footwear and apparel. Under the agreement, Loop will supply Twist™, its virgin-quality circular polyester resin made exclusively from textile waste, establishing Nike as the anchor customer for the Infinite Loop™ India manufacturing facility which is being constructed in partnership with Ester Industries.

RadiciGroup: 21st Sustainability Report published

RadiciGroup has published its 21st Sustainability Report, covering the year 2024, confirming more than two decades of transparency and measurement in the economic, environmental, and social dimensions. From its first Social Report in 2004 to the current reporting aligned with the GRI Universal Standards, the Group is now preparing for its next challenge: the adoption of the criteria that will be set out by the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

Getzner Textil steams ahead with energy savings

Getzner Textil AG is always open to new ideas and committed to investment in innovative technological solutions. This has proven a highly successful approach for more than two hundred years now: founded in 1818 as a family business in Bludenz in the heart of Europe, the company is now one of the world’s leading manufacturers of fabrics for African fashion, shirts and blouses, corporate fashion, and technical textiles, with 1,550 employees, 710 weaving machines, seven locations, and an output of 73 million running meters per year.

Delicate by Day, Glowing by Night

Light and color—no other thread combines these two properties as fascinatingly as GUNOLD's GLOWY specialty thread. During the day, it appears in powdery, soft pastel shades, and at night it transforms into a contrasting bright green. Embroidery and decorative seams change their appearance as if by magic as soon as darkness falls.

Carrington Textiles launches new Fabric Collection Guides at A+A

Global workwear textiles manufacturer Carrington Textiles marked a successful return to A+A in Düsseldorf with the launch of 13 new fabrics and the official debut of their redesigned Fabric Collection Guides. The stand attracted a high number of visitors across the four days of the exhibition, with excellent feedback on both the new products and the innovative format of the guides.