Revision of the EU Waste Framework Directive - Textiles and Food Waste
Governmental Agency: European Commission
Jurisdiction: European Union
Ref no: 2018 Revision: 2018/851 - 2023 Proposal: 2023/0234 (COD)
Status: IN REVIEW
Current Stage: EU Commission proposal announced July 2023. The vote in committee is tentatively planned for February 2024, with a vote in plenary in March 2024.
The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) serves as the key piece of legislation in Europe to drive appropriate management of waste when discarded by a consumer. The foundational principle of the WFD, introduced in 2008, is that materials should be managed in line with the "Waste Hierarchy", in order of:
- Prevention - reducing the generation of waste in the first place
- Preparing for Reuse - ensuring processes are in place that maximise the quality of waste materials that can be reused e.g. identifying clothing through sorting that are suitable to be resold
- Recycling - recycling those materials not suitable for reuse e.g. fibre recycling for use in new textile products
- Recovery - utilising materials not suitable for recycling to avoid virgin resource consumption e.g. incineration to produce energy
- Disposal - Landfilling or other disposal
Essential to the legislation is that waste management is that it is delivered without endangering human health and harming the environment, without risk to water, air, soil, plants or animals, without causing a nuisance through noise or odours and without adversely affecting the countryside or places of special interest.
In 2018 the Directive was revised, introducing a requirement for Member States to implement separate collection systems for textiles by 2025.
In July 2023, a proposal for a targeted revision of the WFD was proposed by the Commission, in particular in relation to reducing the environmental and climate impacts, increase environment quality and improve public health associated with textile waste management. The key part of this revision is the requirement for mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility across all member states, with costs to be covered by obligated "producers" including collection & transport and all treatment (i.e. preparation for reuse & recycling, recycling, disposal).
According to the Council's adopted position from June 2024, by the end of 2028, the Commission will consider setting specific targets for waste prevention, collection, preparing for re-use and recycling of the waste textile sector. Fashion brands and textile producers would have to pay fees to run the EPR schemes and cover waste collection and treatment costs. These schemes would be initiated up to 30 months after the entry into force of the directive and ministers agreed to include microenterprises in their scope.
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Any organization producing or subsequently managing waste generated must follow the requirements of the Waste Framework Directive. For textiles, the revisions necessitate governments to ensure that separate textile waste collection systems are implemented. This will have an impact not only on waste management companies, but also on other organizations e.g. brands, second-hand shops that collect and manage used/waste textiles.
According to the June 2024 position, the level of EPR scheme fees would be based on the circularity and environmental performance of the textile products (known as eco-modulation) to prevent overproduction. Member states can require higher fees for brands following "fast fashion" practices. Member states where thare are higher amounts of textile products determined as viable for resale can ask commercial reuse operators to pay a lower fee when selling those products for the first time.
Social economy entities like charities, social enterprises, and foundations would be allowed to continue their own separate collections and can be exempt from certain reporting requirements.
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The European Parliament adopted its position in March 2024. On June 17, the Council adopted its targeted position on the revision of the directive. This allows the rotating presidency to begin talks with the European Parliament on the final text, which will take place under the new legislative cycle.
