FEAD urges strong recycling industry in response to ENVI vote on EU textile strategy – RECYCLING magazine

Recycling Magazine – 28 April 2023 – FEAD welcomes the vote in the European Parliament’s ENVI committee, expressing overall satisfaction with the direction of the report and the tabled amendments. However, FEAD raises strong concerns about restricting recycling markets under the ‘close loop recycling’ mantra. Reduced markets for recycled products lead to lower recycling rates and to lower quality of the recyclates. In contrast, mandatory recycled content targets for textiles pull the demand for quality recycled fibres, boosts end-markets for separately collected textiles and triggers further investments to scale up textile recycling. While we strongly support the call for reliable data and benchmarks to establish the right (phased) targets, we also regret that the Parliament maintains specific separate targets. We consider that combined targets (for reuse and recycling) would avoid complicated legislation and bureaucratic administration.