It’s searching in Shopwalhalla The Amsterdam Kalverstraat. There should be a circular revolution going on in the clothing world, but there is not much noticeable in these stores.
In the back of the Zara, next to the cash registers, there is still an indication that something is going on. A kind of letterbox, with the text: “Take the clothing that you no longer wear and give them a new life.”
This year, clothing brands and stores must ensure that half of the volume of clothing that they bring on the market to the second -hand market annually is or is recycled. That percentage must rise to 75 percent in 2030.
So you would expect that clothing stores are full of collection bins to hand in old clothes. That there is a campaign on television about how people should throw away their clothes in the right way, as it is for bottles and cans. That doesn’t happen.
You would also expect that at clothing recyclers such as Brightfiber in Amsterdam – who make new yarns of old clothing – the orders will come in. That the machines run day and night.
Is that also so? “No,” says top woman Ellen Mensink. “Far from. There is interest, but the really big orders are not forthcoming.”
There is also no flag with collectors and sorters (who prepare clothing for the second -hand market or recycling). In fact, they do not lose their collected clothing, have to rent extra sheds to save everything, run losses and fear for their survival. How is it possible that rules that are intended to make the clothing industry circular do not lead to circular clothing?
Pollution
Fashion is an industry with a nice package and an ugly back. Of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, 2 to 8 percent are for the account of the clothing and shoe industry. This is independent of water consumption (86 million Olympic swimming pools every year), chemicals and microplastics in soil and water.
In the Netherlands, almost one billion items of clothing are on the market, plus 70 to 100 million pairs of shoes. And we throw away an average of 12 kilos of textiles per person every year.
There are few sectors that are ‘on volume’ as the fashion industry, A CEO of ASN sighed After the bank had completely withdrawn from the sector in August last year as an investor. “On more, on cheaper, and that only gets worse.”
Clothing is also increasingly becoming a disposable product. Fashion trends are often blamed for that. But it is also because web stores such as Chinese Shein and Temu win market share. They drove the price of clothing down.
Just like the quality. Two thirds of the fibers from the clothing industry nowadays consist of a form of plastic. There is hardly any recycling: 0.3 percent of all clothing consists of recycled material. And that has not been old clothes, but almost always polyester made from old PET bottles. While the soft drink industry that could have used again for new bottles. It is therefore logical that new legislation (which will later also apply in the rest of Europe) makes clothing brands responsible for their own mountain of waste.
To comply with the law, producers and stores may unite in a foundation. In recent years, these foundations have negotiated with existing clothing collectors and sorters. The Netherlands has traditionally been European leader in collecting and sorting clothing for the second-hand market in Eastern Europe and Africa. Only: by fast fashion Can be earned less and less with that. There is less high -quality stuff in between and prices have fallen worldwide. One clothing fortress went bankrupt, others are in financial trouble and have to rent extra sheds to store the clothing.
The newly formed foundations have been compensating for collectors and sorters since this year for the work they do. The reimbursement is only less than half of the costs that collectors and sorters incur. And it does not solve their problem: there is not enough demand for second -hand clothing.
Recyclers then? They were not helped either. Some receive a (non-cost-effective) fee for recycling from the new foundations. Recyclers are just not waiting for a fee, they want customers. Because some exceptions (such as Zeeman who sells sweaters that consist largely of recycled material), clothing brands do not buy recycled yarns. They are more expensive. In practice, recycling is at most with bed linen, work clothing or as a downcycling: old clothing that is used as insulation material or seat filling.
“We are all waiting for brands that take our products,” says Ellen Mensink of Brightfiber. “Without the demand from the clothing industry, this market cannot develop. The prices for recycled fiber also remain high.”
‘No result obligation’
ILT supervisor will monitor the new law. But this summer it warned in a report that threatens to stay a lot with the old one. In this way, the ILT fears, “the quantities of discarded old clothes […] Only increase ”.
The law does have an ‘effort obligation’ to use 10 percent or more recycled material from old clothing in new products. But that is “no result obligation”, “notes Sekhar Lahiri, director of the UPV Textiel Foundation, to which eleven hundred stores and brands are affiliated. “We can conclude that the legislator brands have not imposed an obligation to include recycled material made of old clothing in their collections.”
Apart from recycling, the question is how clothing brands will at all realize that this year half of the clothing will be collected for reuse. So far, more than half of the clothing in the residual waste in people’s homes, instead of thrift stores or in the textile bin. All those hundreds of millions of items of clothing cannot be recycled or reused anyway. The clothing industry should change that with large information campaigns, but they are still not forthcoming.
According to Lahiri, a transition needs time. He points out that recyclers from his foundation get some financial support if they manage to cooperate with brands. “It is the first year that there are objectives. A movement must be set in motion.”
Janine Röling of the smaller Foundation Collective Circular Textile does not think that the clothing industry will automatically make the new legislation more sustainable. “There must be an obligation for applying recycled material. This can be done by imposing European requirements for the design of products.”
And with that we are not there yet, she fears. “Ultimately, tax measures must lead to it virgin Polyester, made of oil or gas, is not as cheap as now. Because there is no fiber that is recycled. ”
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