People in the European Union consume as much clothing, shoes and other textiles like never before. This is written by the European Environment Agency EEA in a new report that it officially wants to present on Wednesday.
According to this, the EU citizens bought an average of 19 kilograms of textiles in the latest comparison year 2022, including eight kilograms of clothing, four kilograms of shoes and seven kilograms of household textiles.
This is enough to fill a large suitcase with new textiles, emphasize the experts: inside the EU authority based in Copenhagen. In 2019 the total amount was still 17 kilograms, in the years before at 14 to 17 kilograms.
Consequences for the environment and climate
According to EEA, textile consumption brings with high loads for the environment and the climate, for example through the consumption of materials, water and land space, but also in the form of emissions, chemicals and microplasty. The report shows that politics, industry and consumers should make their contribution inside so that Europe would be released from fast fashion and better, more durable textiles that could be reused, repaired and recycled. In the end, innovations towards a circular economy could also contribute to the competitiveness of the EU, the report says.
Accordingly, around 6.94 million tons of textile waste were generated in the 27 EU member states in 2022. That corresponds to a good 16 kilograms per person. The converter sees a problem in the fact that far too many thrown away textiles end up in mixed household waste instead of recycling waste: in the comparison year, 85 percent of all textile waste from households were not collected separately.
No more clothes in the residual waste
The EEA puts its hopes in the fact that a new EU directive has an effect in this way: Since January 1, 2025, textiles have had to be disposed of separately from the rest of the garbage. Old clothes and used textiles must no longer be thrown into residual waste.
The EEA does not expect the consumption quantities to the individual EU countries. In the report, she also pointed out that the estimates were associated with a certain uncertainty. Accordingly, they calculate from production and import minus the export of the textiles.