Europe

The first edition of the Textiles Recycling Expo 2025 in Brussels brought together innovators, brands, policymakers, and recyclers to accelerate circularity in textiles. With cutting-edge recycling technologies on display and calls for robust EU policy frameworks, the event spotlighted the need to scale solutions through business model innovation, financing, and regulatory clarity.

Chemical recycling attracts billions in investment promises while proven mechanical methods remain underutilised. With 73% of collected textile waste still landfilled or incinerated globally, industry experts question whether technological tunnel vision is preventing immediate impact and realistic circularity solutions.

Europe's textile recycling industry generates only €1.54 billion annually despite processing millions of tonnes of waste, highlighting systemic economic challenges. Industry experts reveal how data invisibility and traceability gaps create cascading costs that undermine commercial viability and prevent meaningful circularity at scale.

To unlock the potential of recycled textiles and second-hand clothing, a new research proposes practical reforms to modernise outdated customs codes, introducing new codes, and create clear standards, and trader incentives that will enhance trust, trade efficiency, and transparency to better support the expanding textile circular economy.

A report by the European Fashion Alliance (EFA) explores the region’s fashion industry, renowned for creativity and innovation, detailing the hurdles, opportunities, and strategies for advancing towards a more sustainable and technologically integrated future.

A €7 million project, BioFibreLoop, kicked off in Germany, will use laser technology to imitate natural structures in order to produce garments with water and oil-repellent, self-cleaning and antibacterial properties — basically develop recyclable outdoor and work clothing made from renewable bio-based materials.

Fifteen industry associations representing the apparel, footwear and packaging sectors have called on EU legislators for improvement of market surveillance to ensure that imported products enter the EU market only if they are fully compliant with chemical legislation.

Refashion, a producer responsibility organisation, has launched Industrial Challenge, a project that seeks to deploy innovative industrial solutions for recycling non-reusable used textiles and footwear in France and Europe.

The 'mantua', a gown worn over a corset and an often contrasting petticoat, besides altering the look of western fashions, radically changed women’s involvement in the fashion industry, representing also a ticket to financial freedom.

Investors in Europe are increasingly opting for starups that have clear-cut sustainability commitments, with more than half of them having declined a startup investment opportunity in the last 12 months due to concerns about that company’s sustainability credentials.