Vincenzo Gente (right), Policy Officer in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment. Next to him is Diane Woods, Global Head of Business Development at Reju. Image: AMI


Julie-Marlène


Pelissier (right), Head of Sustainability


Region Europe South at H&M. Image: AMI


the next few years until EPRs are up and running?” As there is going to be a structural gap, there is a need to “get additional funding, ideally from the EU, but also from other financial institutions, to de-risk the investments to get these capacities up and running. And then once the industry is up and running, once we have certain efficien- cies, that’s where EPR should go.”


EPR uncertainties In a roundtable discussion on EPR, Gail Orton, Senior Director, Government Relations Europe at Shein, suggested it is inevitable that EU member states will initially go in different directions on EPR schemes in textiles. “From a brand’s perspective, that makes it very difficult,” she said. “Because the circular business model is not just about end-of-life. It’s about how you design, how you source the fibre, how you produce the garment. And if you need to redesign, the market needs to be big enough. [As the EU member states vary in size and resourcing] You need to make sure that the incentive to redesign isn’t outweighed by the operational burden or the administrative burden of doing so for that particular market.” Sofie Schop, Executive Director Europe,


Global Partnerships at WRAP, said: “We see successful EPR schemes in other sectors as


well as strong enforcement. That sounds a little like policing, but it’s all about account- ability. It’s great to have an EPR scheme, but it only works if there is someone looking at the accountability side as well. Otherwise, we’re just signing off on a nice set of words on paper. So that accountability is abso- lutely key. Some of the examples we’ve seen in other sectors include the publication of a list of compliant companies in a specific space complying with EPR.” There are some pitfalls that can be


observed in the EPR schemes in different sectors, said Schop, who warned against schemes being overcomplicated. This echoed comments in earlier roundtable discussions at the event. The conference at Textiles Recycling


Expo was rounded off by Ekaterina Stoyanova, Senior Policy Advisor on Textiles at Recycling Europe, speaking about The EU Textile Circularity Dilemma: Reconciling Reuse and Recycling in Today’s Landscape. She said: “The realities have been that the revenues that come from the reuse part have been supporting the cost for recy- cling.” But revenues in the reuse sector have also come under pressure from the rise of ultra-fast fashion, she said. “This naturally being of lower quality brings down the quality of the incoming stream and threatens the viability of the sorting. In


very simple words, you can get less money from what you are collecting and sorting and putting on the second-hand market.”


No silver bullet There has also been an impact on the reuse sector from the EU’s mandate for the separate collection of textile waste since 2025. “We see that the separate collection leads to lower quality in the incoming stream,” she said. As this stream has less value in reuse, it has to be sent for recycling, adding to volumes at a time when the recycling industry is not ready. She said that EPR in textiles “should have been introduced already before the separate collection to be able to alleviate the pressure from the separate collection of textile waste.” Recycling Europe sees EPR, when it


arrives in textiles, to have many benefits, including support for the recycling industry and an incentive for eco-design of new products. It therefore supports eco-modula- tion in EPR fees. “Of course, EPR is not a silver bullet,”


“We believe that if we have 2.7m tonnes [of


recycling capacity], we’re reaching a tipping point” ROBERT VAN DE KERKHOF, CEO, REHUBS


18 Textiles Loop • Autumn 2026


said Stoyanov. “It has to go jointly with other major pieces of legislation, and for us that’s the eco design, which is currently very actively discussed at EU level, how to make that legislation work. And from our perspective, the single most important requirement is to introduce mandatory recycled content targets for all the garments placed on the EU market, prioritizing the EU-generated post-consum- er textile waste again.”


This article was produced with assistance from AI.


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