Lawmakers in the European Parliament have voted to adopt a series of proposals aimed at reducing waste from the textiles and food sectors, including requiring fashion brands and textile producers to pay for the collection and recycling of clothing and footwear, and setting binding food waste reduction targets for EU member states.
With the aim of lessening the environmental and climate impacts of the food and textile industries—which it identified as two of the top resource-intensive industries causing significant negative environmental externalities—the European Commission proposed revising the Waste Framework, and the Parliament adopted its position on the proposal on July 20, 2023.
The Commission reports that the EU produces 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste annually, of which 5.2 million tonnes are from apparel and footwear. Of the post-consumer textile waste, only 22 percent is collected separately for recycling or repurposing, with the remaining portion being burned or landfilled.
The Commission’s proposal acknowledged the aggravating effects of fast fashion, which promotes larger volume apparel purchases by putting low-cost goods on the market that do not internalise environmental externalities into the cost. Producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, which are currently used to manage waste from packaging, batteries, and electric and electronic equipment, would be expanded to include textiles under the new proposed rules approved by MEPs. Producers would be required to pay the costs of collecting, sorting, and recycling textile waste separately. Products that contain materials connected to textiles, such as leather, composition leather, rubber, or plastic, as well as apparel and accessories, blankets, bed linens, curtains, headwear, footwear, mattresses, and carpets, would be subject to the new regulations.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
