Towards a circular textile industry

Abstract

The world’s population has been rapidly expanding, and with that, the resource use has grown exponentially. This has led to an immense amount of waste, which is generally not managed in a sustainable manner, creating significant societal challenges. One way to limit this waste is by implementing the concept of a circular economy (CE). An important policy that could help in achieving this CE goal in that of extended producer responsibility (EPR). EPR is a governmental policy that adds external costs associated with the processing of products after their use phase to the market price of these products, paid for by the producers. The Dutch government has set CE goals for its textile industry and is currently in the process of implementing an EPR legislation. However, past EPR legislations have generally not been effective in transforming an industry towards circularity. Therefore, the research question is as follows: How can the upcoming Dutch EPR for textiles be structured to accelerate progress towards the circularity goals?