At the end of March 2022, the EU Commission published its “Strategy for Sustainable and Recyclable Textiles”. The EU has thus provided a framework and a “vision” for a sustainable and circular textile sector. Textiles will also be one of the first product groups of the EU Sustainable Products Initiative, which provides for binding regulation for the entire internal market: Ecodesign requirements are to ensure better durability, reusability, reparability, fiber-to-fiber recyclability and a higher prescribed by 2030 Ensure recycled fiber content, limit the presence of substances of concern and reduce negative impacts on climate and the environment.
The Federal Ministry for the Environment, which is responsible for Germany, invited to a first specialist event in Berlin on May 31 to implement the EU textile strategy. In addition to numerous NGOs and representatives of the preliminary stages, the BTE also took part. In her opening statement, Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke made it clear that there will be a product pass for textiles and that a graduated fee for the disposal of textiles will be introduced, in addition to the ecodesign requirements outlined above. If textiles do not meet the future requirements, “bad products” will gradually no longer be allowed to be sold in the EU.
Concretely, the possibilities of a uniform labeling for recyclable and durable textiles were then discussed in workshops. The BTE and the practitioners from trade and industry who were present showed the Federal Ministry for the Environment how complex the entire topic is and how some – supposedly simple – solutions are hardly practicable. The NGOs, in particular, keep making advances that are primarily ideological in nature and would cause great economic damage to the textile and fashion industry.
The BTE therefore expressly welcomes the approach of the Federal Environment Ministry to look for practicable solutions for the industry in workshops and will vehemently advocate appropriate measures in the subsequent events. According to the BTE, the aim must be to reconcile economic and ecological concerns and thus ensure that people are supplied with affordable, fair and environmentally friendly clothing!