WRAP

Governments in more than two dozen markets are adopting or planning Extended Producer Responsibility schemes for textiles, building funding architectures designed to make fashion brands pay for end-of-life waste management. The infrastructure to sort and recycle what those schemes collect barely exists. A new analysis by WRAP maps how the gap between collection mandates and processing capacity is producing stockpiles, exports and at least one regulatory enforcement action.

Climate action NGO WRAP has unveiled a new UK Textiles Pact Roadmap to fast-track circularity and environmental progress across the industry. Despite per-tonne cuts in carbon and water use, soaring production volumes and linear business models threaten to erase those gains. The Roadmap strengthens collaboration, targets upstream emissions, and supports policy reforms for a resilient circular future.

Climate action NGO WRAP is extending its Durability Accelerator Initiative beyond the UK to test whether clothes sold by major brands truly last under everyday use. Following pilot studies that questioned links between price and longevity, the programme will benchmark garments across North American and European markets, pushing for tougher, evidence-based durability standards in fashion.

The UK is moving closer to building a closed-loop textile recycling system, with a major new report outlining how advanced sorting technology can transform waste into valuable resources. By mapping the steps from collection to high-quality fibre recovery, it highlights the coordinated action needed to cut landfill use and drive circular fashion growth.

A new study has challenged assumptions about fashion pricing and garment quality. Testing 47 t-shirts using industry standards, researchers have found no correlation between price and durability. Budget garments often outperformed designer ones, while synthetic fibre blends proved more durable than pure cotton. The findings support upcoming legislation requiring brands to declare durability metrics.

Nonprofit WRAP has warned that if the UK’s used textiles sector goes under, charities, local authorities and consumers will have to pay the cost of dealing with unwanted used textiles.

Environmental action NGO WRAP has come out with a Design for Recyclability Toolkit for Fashion and Textiles as a practical resource to help businesses integrate recyclability into product development.

A report by global environmental action NGO WRAP has established clear benchmarks for repair and resale using data from six companies and helped to develop a single methodology that can be applied by businesses of all shapes and sizes, to give robust and comparable data on big environmental savings from preloved and repair, showing that introducing a little circular living into our lives reduces the price and the environmental price tag too.

The lack of universal industry standard has prompted global retailer Primark to come up with its own Durability Framework that spells out guidance designed to encourage longer-lasting clothing across the fashion industry.

New numbers released by environmental group WRAP on Tuesday show that the state of post-consumer textiles in the UK does not augur well for circularity, and the situation is compounded by concerns that the recycling and reuse sector is on the verge of collapse.