STICT – A new thread in Europe’s journey towards circular textile systems
There is a critical window of opportunity within the EU right now to create a system for meaningfully preventing and managing textile waste. Within the EU, the separate collection of textiles has become mandatory since 1 January 2025 and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes will be mandatory from 2027-28. While these legislative requirements are small steps towards promoting a circular textiles sector in Europe, this two to three-year gap between the collection obligation and mandatory EPR schemes means there is a real risk that municipalities will delay action during this period, due to the lack of clarity given on what will be asked of them in the future.
At this defining moment for European textile policy, ZWE is launching a brand new project to bring solutions to the forefront of the local and national policymakers’ agendas. ‘Strengthening the Implementation of Circular Textiles Strategies in the EU’, STICT for short, is a 2-year project that ZWE is coordinating, funded by the Laudes Foundation. The project is based upon the delivery of three separate but intertwined strategies, from the local to national and EU levels.
By the end of 2026, through the implementation of these strategies, the project aims to support three municipalities in three countries to implement best practice models on textile waste prevention and management, which we hope will help inspire a wider group of municipalities to replicate similar standalone measures. Furthermore, in these same three countries, we’re aiming to ensure the ongoing development of EPR schemes for textiles has consulted a broader group of stakeholders, such as social enterprises and municipal associations, in order to have a system that’s designed to be more reflective of the different actors across the textile supply chain. Finally, in Brussels, we will ensure that European policy-makers are regularly informed about the results of our work, and the need to review the EU rules for textile EPR under the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) to ensure best practices are mainstreamed across the Union.
To help deliver the project, we are collaborating with ZWE members in 3 countries who will lead the work with their municipality and engage in their national EPR processes:
- Zero Waste Estonia and the municipality of Saku
- Zero Waste Belgium and the City of Brussels
- Ekologi brez meja and the municipality of Bled (Slovenia)
The project will also build on and utilise the existing knowledge within our network on textiles and EPR by working closely with other members, such as Fair Resource Foundation and VOICE Ireland, who have long-established programmes and expertise on the topic.
Excitingly with this project, we are also partnering for the first time with textile data experts TEXroad. Their focus with municipalities is on data-driven improvements to textile management infrastructure, including collection, sorting and local-level reuse. TEXroad will support the delivery of our work with municipalities, primarily with data management and reporting services. Together with partner municipalities, TEXroad will co-develop shared data sets, metrics and insights for municipalities and policymakers to be successful with separate textile collection and EPR across Europe.
Together, our data-driven framework aims to empower not only the 3 participating municipalities in this project but a much wider group of other cities & regions across Europe who want to tackle their textile waste generation, ensuring much greater volumes of textiles are first collected and then properly managed for reuse and recycling.
For more information about the project or if you want to collaborate with us, feel free to contact the project lead, Jack McQuibban: [email protected]
