Spain’s Fashion Giants to Start Collecting Used Clothing Waste in 2025 as Part of Trial Program

Ten of Spain’s top fashion companies — like the owner of Zara, Inditex; H&M; IKEA; Decathlon; and Primark — will begin collecting discarded clothing beginning in April of 2025 as part of a year-long trial to manage textile waste, reported Reuters.

Re-viste, the project’s organizer, said shoes, clothing and other textiles will be separated from regular waste so that they can be recycled or reused.

The voluntary program is in anticipation of European Union regulations that are expected to begin in 2026.

“[Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)] schemes require producers to take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products, in particular at the end of the product’s life,” the European Union says in its Waste Framework Directive.

Marta Gomez, quality and environmental evaluation director at Spain’s ministry of energy transition, told fashion heads at a Madrid event that Spain is waiting for the new EU regulations to be approved before the country issues rules for fashion companies.

Sources from the fashion industry and government officials said the new rules won’t come into force until companies have had a minimum of one year to adjust.

“The regulations show us the way, but we have decided not to wait to comply with the legal requirements,” said Andres Fernandez, Re-viste’s president and sustainability head at Mango, a retailer participating in the trial, as Reuters reported.

The effect of the new rules will be that the more clothing and shoes a company sells, the more they are likely to have to pay to manage the resulting waste.

“Under the proposal, the level of the financial contributions of the producers will be based on the circularity and environmental performance of textile products (referred to as ‘eco-modulation’),” the EU’s Waste Framework Directive says. “The proposal will foster research and development in innovative technologies that promote circularity in the textile sector. It also supports social enterprises involved in textile collection, sorting, reuse, and recycling, and will ultimately incentivise producers to design more circular products.”

Textile waste doesn’t just pile up in its country of origin, but is frequently shipped to poorer nations in a practice known as “waste colonialism.”

“To reduce illegal waste shipments to non-EU countries, often disguised as intended for reuse, the Commission’s proposal further clarifies the definitions of waste and reusable textiles. This will complement the proposed Regulation on waste shipments, which ensures that textile waste is only exported when there are guarantees that the waste is managed in an environmentally sound manner,” the directive states.

According to official data, just 12 percent of used clothing is collected separately in Spain, and 88 percent of unwanted garments end up in a landfill, reported Reuters. The country’s residents each throw away about 44.1 pounds of clothing annually, compared with roughly 15.4 pounds in the rest of Europe.

During the pilot program, dozens of collection containers will be set up in shopping centers, stores, churches and streets by Re-viste to collect the unwanted textiles in bags to be transported to plants for sorting.

When the legislation is fully implemented, fashion companies say Spain will need approximately one textile waste container per every 1,200 residents.