Cotton, nylon and polyester together – Why can’t we recycle fashion ?
The new ecodesign regulation bans the disposal of unsold stock, but cotton, nylon and polyester sewn together make separation expensive. Where does a garment nobody recycles end up?
Since 19 July 2026, large European companies can no longer destroy nor burn unsold fashion items. The ban extends to medium-sized companies from 2030. It is part of the European ecodesign regulation. The rules aim to make products sold on the EU market durable and circular, and not only in fashion.
The European Environment Agency estimates that between 4 and 9 per cent of textile products are destroyed in Europe every year. The garments have never been worn. That waste generates annual emissions of around 5.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The figure matches the climate impact of a country such as Sweden.
What to do with unsold stock: sales, donations and reuse after the European destruction ban
Destroying unsold goods carries high costs for companies, e-commerce included. In France, around 630 million euros of unsold products are destroyed each year. In Germany, almost 20 million items are returned and then incinerated or sent to landfill. Net of that expense, clearing unsold stock allows companies to cut warehousing costs. The space is then taken up by new merchandise.
Some companies, H&M among them, say they dispose of unsold garments through seasonal sales, charity or transfers to markets with higher demand. Others turn to third-party sellers. Several companies have been accused by press investigations of burning new products with no defects. One case is the British luxury brand Burberry, which in 2017 burned unsold goods worth 28.6 million pounds.
Luxury and mass retail facing the destruction ban: prices, outlets and discount channels
The German Retail Federation has said consumers would benefit from the ban. A larger volume of discounted garments would reach the market through outlets, clearance sales and second-hand channels. HDE managing director Genth has warned that the change in the rules would be a challenge for many shops. “Not all unsold goods can be resold or donated,” he told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
According to the Financial Times, the ban bears directly on luxury fashion. The sector sets prices on the exclusivity of the brand and does not discount through sales or outlets. The new rule will force brands to choose between three options: higher inventory costs, controlled discount channels or reduced production from the start. In 2025, almost 40 per cent of luxury goods were sold at a discount, according to figures released by the Italian trade association Altagamma.
Ultra-fast fashion has different problems. It turns out large volumes of poor, short-lived clothing, which often ends in landfill. It works on a direct-to-consumer model: items are made in small batches of 100 to 200 units, and digital tools track how consumers respond to each single garment. If a garment fails to find buyers, it is withdrawn from production.
The Chinese group Shein has said it has cut waste from unsold garments to low single-digit percentages, in some cases below 1 per cent. In fashion, stock surpluses usually sit at around 25 per cent, and can reach 40 per cent.
Textile overproduction and recovery of unsold stock: the MagnoLab model in Biella
In a market where reuse costs more than it returns, recycling is close to non-existent and an oversupply compresses margins, European fashion is rethinking its logistics. In Italy, some companies are working in this direction.
MagnoLab, a network of companies along the textile supply chain, has built a system for analysing unsold stock. When a company declares excess inventory, the system identifies what can be regenerated and what can be resold. In Cerrione, in the province of Biella, North Italy, machinery has been installed that strips colour from garments with ozone to give them a second life. Mr. Bardelle, co-founder of MagnoLab, told the news agency ANSA that the aim is to work with designers to transform the recovered materials.
One way to contain the problem of unsold stock is not to accumulate it, by moving to on-demand sourcing that reduces overproduction in South-East Asia, with the environmental consequences that follow. Countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh cover much of global demand through large textile manufacturing hubs. Those hubs breach basic workers’ rights and are not bound by strict environmental rules.
Textile waste: the crisis of reuse and the Prato Textile Hub for recycling
Italy produces around 180,000 tonnes of textile waste a year. The largest share passes through sorting, sanitising and preparation for reuse, meaning the second-hand market. These are complex, heterogeneous flows. Fabric is not a single raw material but a set of different materials — cotton, nylon fibres, polyester — mixed together. That composition does not make recycling simple.
Used garments are then sold and exported according to quality, including outside Europe. The European textile collection and recycling industry is going through a crisis. The collapse of exports, the fall in prices driven by fast fashion and rising operating costs are among the main reasons. Warehouses are at the limit of their capacity and the textile reuse chain no longer generates sufficient margins. Large quantities of low-value garments pile up there, hard to place on the market, with the risk of ending in landfill.
In France, almost 715,000 tonnes of textiles are placed on the market each year, but only 34 per cent (around 268,000 tonnes) is collected by the national consortium Refashion. Around 60 per cent of the textiles collected is reused and resold in charity shops or second-hand markets, 30 per cent is recycled into new materials and 10 per cent is sent to energy recovery. In France too, industrial recycling capacity remains limited: in Île-de-France only a few thousand tonnes of textile fibres are recycled. Most recycled textiles are therefore processed abroad or in low value-added sectors.
What brands are doing: the cases of Patagonia, H&M and Fiber Club
Some brands buy recycled fibres. Recycled materials account for 68 per cent of Patagonia’s fabrics, with a large share of recycled polyester, mostly from PET plastic bottles, and structured take-back and regeneration programmes. H&M also positions itself as a central player in the transition to circularity. Its use of recycled materials remains contained: around 20 per cent in 2024. The brand has committed to using only recycled or transparently sourced materials by 2030.
Circ, the company working in textile-to-textile recycling, has announced the expansion of its Fiber Club initiative: a consortium of brands committed to guaranteeing minimum volumes and steadier prices to recyclers, addressing one of the market’s bottlenecks. The lifestyle label Madewell, the sustainable fashion brand Reformation and the European retailer C&A are involved, alongside supply-chain partners Lenzing and Linz Textil.
Fiber Club aims to aggregate demand across the pulp, fibre and yarn production stages. Each brand in the group is developing collections with REFIBRA technology, made with 30 per cent pulp obtained from recycling polyester-cotton blend textile waste.
Environmental crime and downcycling of textile waste: where non-reusable garments end up
During a hearing of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into illegal activity connected to the waste cycle, Fluttero drew attention to environmental crime along the chain. Fluttero is president of the Italian association UNIRAU, which brings together the companies and cooperatives that collect, reuse and recycle used clothing. “Tons of illegally handled clothing still end up abandoned in warehouses and then set on fire, a pattern that also involves processing waste,” Fluttero said. Everything that cannot be reused is sent to forms of downcycling. Downcycling turns waste materials into new products of lower quality, value or function than the original: rags, padding, acoustic panels.
The only recycling plant operating in Italy today opened on 22 July 2026 in Prato. It was built with an investment of 31.3 million euros. It will be able to process up to 33,000 tonnes of textile waste and offcuts a year, combining optical sorting, artificial intelligence and manual sorting.
Post-consumer textiles and pre-consumer offcuts arrive at the plant, are pre-sorted by hand to remove foreign objects and sanitised with oxygen and ozone. NIR sensors read fibre composition and colour in real time, while the AI combines voice input with the optical data and a system of compressed-air jets sorts each garment automatically into one of up to 99 possible categories. Around 60 per cent of post-consumer material goes to reuse; the remaining 40 per cent and industrial waste enter a mechanical tearing line that produces regenerated fibre through cutting, homogenization and fibre opening.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) for textiles: collection targets to 2035
In the absence of eco-contributions, municipalities and second-hand businesses have argued for years that the management of textile waste does not hold up economically. On 23 July 2026, the Italian environment ministry (MASE) and the municipalities reached an agreement on the European extended producer responsibility (EPR) system. From clothing to footwear, from accessories to leather goods and home textiles, the regulation places responsibility on whoever produces or sells textile products in Italy. Companies will have to take on part of the costs and of the management work, promoting ecodesign and traceability along the chain.
The decree also introduces progressive collection rates: 15 per cent by 2026, at least 30 per cent by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2035. Of the roughly 1.4 million tonnes of products placed on the market each year, the system currently intercepts 180,000 tonnes. Reuse will remain a priority, in line with the circular economy principles set by the European Commission. Producers will be pushed to make garments more durable and more circular. The regulation also supports repair businesses through national and local networks.
