Textile waste, why separate collection does not take off in Italy
From 1 January, the European constraint is triggered. In Italy the system, which started in 2022, does not take off: manufacturers' responsibilities still on stand-by
5' min read
5' min read
We are just over two weeks away from 1 January 2025, when European countries will be obliged to separately collect textile waste according to the EU directive 2018/85. More than half of the EU members have already complied with the obligation, including Italy, but currently only 12% of the production goes into the separate collection circuit (source: Eea), and the lack of a producer responsibility policy is hampering the collection of textile waste.
In Italy the obligation from 2022
.The Italian situation is peculiar: our country with Decree 116/2020 introduced the obligation of separate collection of textiles on 1 January 2022, three years ahead of the European constraint; but precisely in 2022 the textile represented, according to Ispra, only 0.8% of the total waste collected separately. Again according to Ispra, the post-consumer textile waste collected in Italy went from 133 thousand tonnes in 2017 to 160 thousand in 2022.
Between 2021 and 2022, the year in which the obligation was introduced, the amount of textile waste collected in separate collection rose marginally, from 2.6 to 2.7 kg per capita per year on average. More recent data, for 2023, come from metropolitan cities: in Milan the collection per capita was 3.2 kg. This is still a low figure, not only compared to the EU average (4.4 kg) but also to the amount of textile waste produced, which is estimated to be around 12 kg per person in Europe.
Epr, horizon 2026
Also putting the brakes on collection is the failure to concretise the manufacturer responsibility (EPR) for textiles, which is being studied in Brussels on a European scale, but in Italy, although it was established with Legislative Decree 116/2020, it has never been regulated and has never started. The decree defining this type of responsibility, in fact, was drafted in spring 2023 but has never been approved. The signing, according to stakeholders, could come in spring-summer 2025, with the consortia starting in January 2026.The Mase confirms that it has restarted work on the draft decree, which, after being shared with Mimit, will be put back out for open consultation. The ministry is acting as a bridge between the industry associations, consortia and municipalities. The latter today deal with separate waste collection, which is mainly carried out by depositing it in bins, but in some cases it is alsodoor-to-door: the first municipality to have introduced it was Capannori (Lucca), in mid-2022.
Consortia
.The decree should officially establish the consortia for textile collection and recycling and regulate their activities. "The role of the consortia will be fundamental to facilitate the implementation of a collection, reuse and recycling system, especially in view of the 63% growth in the production and consumption of clothing and footwear estimated by 2030, with an increase from 62 to 102 million tonnes," commented Alberto Canni Ferrari, head of Erp Southern Europe, which heads the Erp Italia Tessile Consortium (Landbell Group). A balanced system must be created, respecting the realities that operate in the sector: cooperatives must not be intimidated by EPR, which can give an important boost to the textile waste collection activity. It is important to write common system operating rules that consortia will have to follow, then companies will have to check which consortium best represents their needs, also in terms of expertise on end-of-life management".
