EU Waste Textile Exports More Than Doubled In 20 Years

The European Environment Agency recently released a briefing that the number of waste textiles exported from the EU has more than doubled in 20 years, and may continue to grow, which will bring increasingly serious challenges such as waste management and export.

According to the briefing, due to the limited capacity of Europe to recycle and reuse waste textiles, the EU will export a large number of discarded or donated clothing and other waste textiles to Africa and Asia. The data shows that the amount of waste textiles exported by the EU was about 550000 tons in 2000, and has increased to nearly 1.7 million tons by 2019. In 2019, the EU exported 3.8 kg of waste textiles per capita, accounting for 25% of the EU's annual per capita consumption of textiles. These waste textiles are mainly sold to Africa and Asia.

The briefing said that the public generally believed that donating used clothes was always useful in some areas, but this was not completely consistent with reality. In fact, it was uncertain whether the exported waste textiles could be reused eventually. Only part of the waste textiles exported by the EU can be reused, and the part that is not suitable for reuse will eventually flow into the landfill.

The European Environment Agency said that textiles will exert pressure on the environment and climate. Europe is facing serious challenges in managing waste textiles, and the growing number of waste textiles exported by the EU also poses challenges to export destination countries. At present, there is almost no research or information on the utilization of these waste textiles in the receiving countries, such as the actual reuse rate of these waste textiles, and the share of the final waste products.